Don’t be like my dad. Fight to live.

My dad was proud of the awards he earned in World War II and later in his Army career, especially his Combat Infantry Badge. Growing up in the 60s, I sometimes snuck into my parents’ bedroom to pull the medals and CIB out of the box that my dad kept them stored in. I touched the awards, felt the smooth and colorful ribbons, the weighty pendants, and wondered about the stories behind them. I especially admired my dad’s CIB, which I sensed was something special, though I didn’t know exactly why. I’ve put the above image together to show you his awards.

Child of the 1960s

As a boy, I devoured TV shows like Combat!, Twelve O’Clock High, and The Rat Patrol. G.I. Joe was my favorite toy, although my family couldn’t really afford them. I was about eleven when the movie Patton came out. I pestered my dad for weeks to take me to see it. So far as I know, he didn’t care a whit for war pictures. But he finally relented, and off we went to the neighborhood theater to sit down and watch the show.

We stayed through the first part of the movie, which mostly took place in North Africa, and Sicily. I don’t have a clue what my dad was thinking as we sat next to one another in the darkened theater. But when intermission began, my dad stood up abruptly and said we were going. I was confused, and replied that the movie wasn’t over.

I don’t remember exactly what my dad said next, but there was no doubt that we were done watching the film. I was one bummed-out kid as we left the theater and walked back to the hotel where we lived. One minute, I was engrossed in this glorious spectacle of tanks, soldiers, and war, and next thing I knew, it was all over. I never asked my dad why he decided he’d seen enough, but I wish I had.

There are some things you can never unsee

My dad quit school in the eighth grade to work in his father’s hauling business. He was nineteen when he got drafted into the Army in 1942. I’m certain he didn’t know it then, but that fateful draft notice would shape the rest of his all too short life. He went from rural northern Florida to the mountains of northern Italy.

As an infantry scout and squad leader, my dad faced danger every day in combat. He wasn’t unique though. Millions of men endured similar trials during the war. But he was my dad, and that made it different for me. He wasn’t exactly my hero. I can’t say that, except maybe that I wish it were so. But there’s no doubt that my dad exerted a strong influence on me that endures to this day.

Did you ever hear the saying, “He was never the same after the war?” My cousin was a girl when my dad joined the Army, and she’s an elderly woman now; the last of her generation in our family. That’s exactly what she about my dad when she talked to me about him and how he changed after coming home in 1945.

We had a home in the army. or did we?

My family lived through two radically different phases of our life together, at least after my sister and I were born. There was the seeming normalcy of life as Army brats, when we lived on this or that Army post. My dad took me to the troop headquarters sometimes, and I sat next to him drinking hot chocolate while he drank coffee and smoked. I loved it when tanks drove by. It was the best possible life for a kid who only ever wanted to be a Soldier.

Phase two of our family life was the stellar opposite. Unmoored from his sense of purpose, my dad turned into the stereotypical angry veteran. He drifted through a string of dead end jobs, never finding security. We spiraled through crises, moved from place to place, and never put down roots anywhere. The trouble with stereotypes is that every one is embedded with a kernel of truth. My dad’s kernel was rage, and his fuel was alcohol.

My mom tried to leave my dad again and again. See, he was an abuser. It’s hard to know exactly who he tormented worse – my mom, my sister, and me, or himself. Maybe it was a tie? I don’t know. To people on the outside, my dad was the classic retired Soldier; reliable, patriotic, etcetera. But for our family, it was totally different. My dad drank, preferably Seagram’s Seven and Schlitz Beer. Maybe he drank to forget, or maybe to ease the physical pain he endured. Who knows. The more he drank, the angrier he got, and we were trapped in a vicious cycle that never ended. My dad finally left my mom in 1973-ish, although I don’t know the specifics.

I live with a weird and conflicted feeling about my dad and our life together. I wanted to be like him in one way, but not like him in another. Everybody has a critical moment in their lives at some point – that one defining instant that stays with them to the grave. For me, that experience was the day my dad committed suicide.

Another woman – my stepmom – met my dad while he went through an inpatient detox program at Walter Reed Army Hospital in 1974. They got married, and we moved to Colorado, where my dad got a decent job as a truck driver. In April 1979, my stepmom gave birth to my little brother. As she went through the pregnancy, my dad slowed way back on his drinking, and spent more time sober than drunk. I don’t think he drank at all in the final months before my brother was born. From my clueless perspective as a nineteen year-old, our situation felt different and somehow more hopeful than any time of my life.

The gun that killed my dad

You need to know this about my dad – he always had a Smith & Wesson revolver nearby. When I was maybe seven or eight, some hoodlums mugged my dad as we walked to get a pizza on a cold winter night in Chicago. After that, the S&W stayed close always. He wasn’t afraid to use it either. I saw my dad fire that gun in warning more than once.

Have you ever been inside a house when somebody shot a gun? My first time was April 25th, 1979. It happened when I was sitting on the commode in our bathroom not long after breakfast. My stepmom had just come home from the hospital – maybe the day prior – with my brand new little brother. Everything seemed fine that morning. Our family life had settled into a (relatively) pleasant routine.

So I heard this loud BANG!, and then a scream, or maybe it was a howl. I’m not sure. I ran out of the bathroom and saw my stepmom sitting glued on the couch against our front picture window. She held my little brother in her arms. The sun shone brightly that morning and she was silhouetted in the light. My dad was laying facedown on the carpet (it was maroon) with his legs sort of pulled up. The revolver lay beside his hand.

I knelt next to my dad and looked down at him, but I don’t remember seeing a hole in his back. Then I rolled him over. That was when I saw the blood on the front of his shirt. I don’t know why, but I tore the cloth away and saw the hole just above his left nipple. He wasn’t bleeding badly, but little bubbles were blowing in and out of the wound.

The first time I ever saw a gunshot wound

I had never even heard of a sucking chest wound, much less seen one. But there it was, right before my eyes. Although it happened over forty years ago, I can still feel the horrible sense of urgency that gripped me in the moment. I had to do something! But what? My dad was hurt badly, and I knew we had to get help. So I ran to the kitchen, called 911, grabbed the first towel I could find, and ran back to the living room.

Pressing the towel against the wound, I looked down into my dad’s eyes. Since that day, I’ve always wondered if he heard me when I told him to please not die, and that I loved him. I’m sure it only took minutes for the firefighters and police to arrive, but it felt like an eternity. The ambulance rushed my dad to Fitzsimons Army Hospital, where he was rolled straight into surgery. The doctors worked on him for hours in the operating room, but they couldn’t save his life. It was too late, or maybe he just didn’t want to live. I don’t know.

A few days later, I went to the funeral home to see my dad for the final time. I found his Combat Infantry Badge and took it along. The casket was open and it looked as if he were sleeping. I knew I would never see him again as I leaned over and pinned the CIB onto his lapel. I whispered that I loved him and kissed his cheek. Then, the funeral director closed the casket lid, and that was that.

A cold and lonely day in Arlington

My dad had told us at some point or another that when he died, he wanted to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, but we didn’t have any money. Army Emergency Relief stepped in, and gave us a grant to make that wish come true. Without them, it could not have happened. The Old Guard buried him on a cold and windy day, and besides the funeral detail and chaplain, I was the only attendee. I felt so lonely and forlorn standing at that grave long ago, but just yesterday.

When I got back home, my stepmom announced that she was going the next week to live with her sister in Texas, leaving me homeless. It’s not that I blamed her, because she had to take care of herself and my brother. I understood that, but it was so fucking hard. The first few days after she was gone, I slept in my car, feeling ashamed and miserable. My world had shattered and I had no idea where to turn or what to do.

My high school friend Alex Macintosh found out what had happened and his family took me in until I got on my feet. I never had the chance to truly thank him, but in a way, that saved me. My life was chaotic for awhile, and Alex and I lost touch. So many times over the decades since, I’ve wished I could somehow thank Alex and his folks for their kindness to a lost young man.

I spent years wondering about why my dad chose that moment to destroy his life and our family. It haunted me, worrying if that was how I was going to end up – I mean, with the muzzle of a gun pressed against my chest. I know now that won’t happen, but it wasn’t always so.

I’ve asked myself probably a million times why my dad decided to end his life. I’ve wondered and wondered what made him choose to do it so violently with his family right there in the house. Our lives seemed to have turned a corner, yet my dad chose that moment to demolish our family.

After my own combat service in 1991, I wished beyond wishing that my dad was alive so we could talk and try to make sense of things. But maybe he wouldn’t have been able to do that even if he hadn’t killed himself. In any event, he took that choice away when he pulled the trigger.

Over four decades have passed since my dad’s suicide. When he shot himself to death, he blew a hole in our family too, turning all of our lives inside out. It’s taken years for the wound to scab over, yet I don’t believe it will ever heal completely. Let’s not avoid, or dance around the topic. Suicide is a terrible legacy to leave for a family to sort out.

PTSD before it had a name

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a recognized condition today. Millions of Americans live with it in one form or another. But it didn’t have a name or diagnosis when my dad was alive. I know he spent time in the hospital to treat whatever they called it then. I have absolutely no doubt that my dad had PTSD from World War II. And you know what? He wasn’t alone, no by a long shot.

Suicide is not painless

Suicide is painless, it brings on many change, I can take or leave it if I please. Johnny Mandel wrote those words for a song in the movie M*A*S*H. You know what? That song is bullshit. You can’t unfire a bullet. You can’t unswallow Draino, or suck the overdose of heroin out of your vein. I was a cop for ten years after I retired from the Army. I investigated more suicide cases than I can count. Some of them still come to me at night, so I know what I’m talking about.

22 veterans and service members commit suicide every day. The suicide rate is increasing among veterans. If you kill yourself, the enemy you fought overseas wins. Here’s the deal. You owe it to your loved ones and friends to live. Period. Once you’re dead and in the grave, their pain and suffering are only beginning. I’m here to tell you that their anguish will remain like a dark shadow for the rest of their lives. The agony of your suicide will diminish over time, but it will never completely go away.

Your buddies are there for you

In our units, we all served shoulder to shoulder with our battle buddies. We learned how to function as teams that supported one another. Each of us understood and practiced our roles in the crew, fire team, section, or whatever. We worked together, lived together, went on pass together, caroused together, were tested together. Many of us went to war together. And then one day, it was all over. We left the service and moved into a new phase of our lives. We hung up our uniforms for the final time, and that was that. But not really.

When your battle buddies gather at the next unit reunion, they want you there, not some fading pictures from back in the day. They’re going to ask each other the same questions as your family. They’ll think the same things as your family:

• Why did he do kill himself? It seemed like he’d really turned a corner.
• How come he didn’t call me first. We talked about everything.
• It’s been such a long time since the war and so many of us have died. Why did he have to be next?
• Who’ll be next? Will it be me?

In the unit, you all endured so much together and your old buddies are dealing with the same emotions and memories as you. Now it seems as if you’re alone. But you aren’t. Call a battle buddy. You didn’t go into combat alone. If you’re thinking of killing yourself, don’t do it. Stop. Find someone to listen. Part of the Soldier’s Creed states: “I will never quit.” Live the creed.

If you can’t find help right away, don’t give up. Keep fighting. Call another buddy. Keep calling and never surrender to the darkness. It isn’t just your own life you’re fighting for. You’re also fighting for the people who love you, who rely on you, who need you. If you can’t reach anyone to talk with, call the Veterans Crisis Line at:

A new hope, a new day

The sun is going to rise tomorrow. That rock solid truth can give you comfort, even in the darkest of times. With the dawn comes hope. It may seem as if there’s no way out. I know that feeling from personal experience. But never forget that the chance for renewal, a fresh start, or a new day, is always within your grasp. If you don’t want to live for yourself, then live for your family and friends. There is always hope – always.

You may feel deep in your soul that your life isn’t worth living. But it is. As a veteran, you’ve fought and struggled to find a small bit of peace. You owe it to your family and buddies to stay alive, to keep going, no matter how hard it may seem. You deserve to live. Your family deserves to have you alive. Your battle buddies deserve for you to still walk among them. Find a reason to live. Hang on for all you’re worth and don’t let go.

Much respect and love,

Mark