One of the biggest problems
in our fight against suicide is the lack
of connectivity and communication
amongst people, I mean, sometimes society
is so self-centered looking at the box
inside their pocket and
they just disregard the obvious signs of
people just going around them
and sometimes people, themselves, don't
feel confident enough
that the system is going to take care of
their needs. As a matter of fact a lot of
our young men and women in the service are
looking at, "well if I go
to see mental health, I'll lose my
clearance, I'll lose my job, I won't be able
to fly, I won't be able to jump."
And that's true, you know, and there,
there's still a lot to be fixed in that
arena, and I know you agree with that, too.
Look at the redundancy of paperwork you
went through back in 2000 and,
I don't know, how many years ago was that?
It just about turned you away, though,
didn't it?
Because it was just so hard to deal with.
You didn't want to keep telling your story
over and over and keep filling out those
same papers over and over.
A lot of that's been...
it's gotten better, I think.
Well, it's gotten better. If you look back to 2005,
when my signs were appearing then
I needed some help.
Yeah.. You know mental health to be exact.
Dealing with some of the
aftermath of combat...
I refused, number one, to admit that I
had a problem.
Everything was okay because that the
people that I was around
were facing the same issues and uh, you
know, you kept reminding me, telling me
different times, you know, to go ahead and get fixed,
but I refused to do it.
Well, I think coming out of combat, though, what's
the last thing you want to talk about?
It's combat, right? That's the hard part.
And then you come into,
from combat to a family life and you
know it's not..
it's not to turn off...turn off that switch
of combat and what you know you did
every day out there and then to come
home and be a husband
and a father or a son or whatever,
it's very hard.
Yeah no... to make that transition, anyway.
Yeah, it is a transition, and I think that
one of the toughest things is
if you don't get the help that you need,
you know, you miss out on so much.
You remember how many times you told me, "Hey,
you're ignoring your family..and
you're doing things that you shouldn't
be doing...You know... you're saying things that you
shouldn't be saying...
or you're just disengaged...yeah.
But look how we look back now all
those years ago that
from those years that you didn't do anything that
we missed out so many good times.
Look at all the good things we do now when we
travel and we have this future.
Now that we've flipped it to think about:
Wow, we have this to look forward to in life,
and this and our future...we can go
camping, we can go hang out we can hang
out with the dog,
you know, we missed so many years of that
because you know you were in a dark place.
And I didn't know how to handle that,
right, I couldn't push you into doing
that. I could just ask you
but until you were ready, right, until you
were...
...you were being respectful of the situation
because you understood it. You have been
with it since day one.
Well that's what...it was a protection thing.
But, you're right. You were my
protector and that you guarded that in
confidence, you know, and 
I was a functioning, broken man.
I was able to still get up
there and do the things that i needed to do
but I had my struggles and sometimes
those struggles came out at the wrong time.
Well yeah...you're right, I mean it's not
just war. You're talking many factors:
financial, relationship, you know, loss of
loved ones
and everything else but I mean you know
you remember the phone call you got after I finally
came open about everything.
You know, how it was just a huge weight off my
shoulders and I felt so much better
about it because I had finally come
clean yeah and... 
I don't think I've ever seen you feel so lighthearted or
feel like there was this relief on your face
that I hadn't seen in
twelve, thirteen years.
Yeah, but unfortunately,
there's people out there that
do not see that as an option.. right..and
they tend to go the suicide route because they feel that that is the way out of it.
And it's not, I mean, look look how much I
had to live for if I would have taken
that route.
You know, I would have missed out on so
many things and I don't think that that is right.
And, if we have people listening out there,
to what the proposed fix will be just
communicate. Just communicate. 
Give somebody an ear.
Lend somebody an ear.
So that they can go ahead and be
heard on what their issues are
and ask the questions most importantly
just be out there and just talk to them
about what is that's bothering them
and even if they don't answer
back, it may be just enough to walk them
off the ledge.
You know, but sometimes, you know, people
just got to realize that, you know,
there's a lot more of us living in this
planet and we're all humans.
Well and we're all worthy...
Yeah, everybody's worthy.
This fight...you know, 2020 has been a horrible year
so far. It has been.
COVID, all of the stuff
that is going on with civil unrest
and on top of that all the other
stressors that life brings
and you know we're losing this fight
against suicide.
Every year seems to be getting, seems to be
getting worse, at times...
and one life lost is too many, you know...
and if people are listening they want to
gain confidence to go ahead and seek
help, I mean I urge them to use me as an
example.
You know, I was getting help when I was
interviewing for the job of the SEAC.
And we need to go ahead and
wash that stigma away so that people
know that the most important thing that we can do
is fix them.
Not to castigate them for coming forward.
We can do more. We need to do more
but people need to know that we are
fighting our hardest to go ahead and
battle this thing.
Well we've come a long way because we've
come a long way since
you saw hell...yeah...as well.
Yeah, well from, you know, one person that
has struggled to another to anybody
listening out there,
I just want to let you know that: Hey, you
know
talk to people...You know...be able to get
those things off your chest and off your
mind so that you can live a good and productive life.
Because you deserve it.
Everyone deserves it.
Right, Mabel?
