dvick03

It certainly does, an unfortunately it is too much to carry for some. It’s not easy go back home to try to pick up where you left off and expect everything to be the same, because the fact of the matter is, it will never be the same again. And some get overwhelmed with fear of going back home because they know things won’t be the way they remembered and decide they would be better off not going home and starting over. My son was 5 months old the first time I left and was gone 13 months. After I was home, any time he heard the word dad he would try to go to the computer to look for me. He could not understand that I was the same person, just physically with him at that point, because he didn’t know who I was. That lasted almost a month. That’s a tough thing to deal with and some people just can’t take that.

There’s a reason people who have been on more than one or two deployments have more than likely made a decision to keep going back. Sure, you have the war junkies out there. But it’s not just the experience of combat that has an effect on people mentally. You come back home after being gone so long and realize that life at home went on without you and almost feel like you’re not needed there anymore because everyone has learned how to continue their life without you there. You think and talk about home but you only remember the way it was when you left. Then once you get there you realize that everything you remembered about it is now different and you have to try to fit into the life of your family that has learned to live without you. I got home from my last deployment 5 years ago, but if someone told me I could go back tomorrow and continue right where it left off for another year, I would do it with no hesitation. It’s a much easier life to live with far fewer worries than there are being at home. You know what you need to do in order to deal with any situations you may encounter. Life at home is not so simple. On top of already feeling like they are no longer needed at home, sadly it leaves some to feel like adjusting to that new life is just not possible.

You clearly have no idea what living through things that he likely did actually does to someone. Some people have an amazing family and awesome support system, and everything else in life going their way yet the internal demons overpower them. Compared to the average every day American, they have every reason for suicide to never be a thought that would even enter their mind. Who’s to say he didn’t do it in front of his wife because she’s the one person who has been there for him through the struggles he has dealt with and has shared his pain. It’s quite likely that being with her at that moment gave him comfort him when he made the decision to end the war he was still fighting inside to end it the struggle in hopes of being at peace. It’s not an idea he woke up with last week and began planning out. He had no reason for any average person resort to suicide in the first place. That alone shows the person he used to be or who he is on a good day is clearly not the same person that made the decision to do what he did, so the manner in which it happened is no more odd than it happening in the first place. If this sort of thing wasn’t happening daily there would be no need for the VA because we would all live a normal life and there would not be events like this happening that cause someone like you to ‘speculate’ how odd it may seem. Unless you have lived through something like seeing some of the people who are closest to you gathered up and put in little boxes to be flown back home for their family to have something to bury, there not much need for you to ‘speculate’ how ‘odd’ something like this may be.