Avoiding The 23 Club

We service member have a warped sense of gallows humor. With 22 veterans a day committing suicide, you hear jokes about joining (or avoiding) the “23 Club”, rather than the chest-thumping and crying that is so normal among civilians. But it seems very few outside of the Vets and support organizations are asking “why are there so many suicides?” I have a theory.

At its most basic level, my job was to be a self-propelled bullet magnet. All I had to do was go out and die for my country. Any lump of meat with a pulse that can convert oxygen to carbon dioxide without mechanical assistance should be capable of that. You dont have to be smart; Forest Gump was a great infantryman. You dont have to be brave; its not the bullet with your name on it, but the one addressed “To Whom it May Concern” thats gonna give you a bad day. You dont have to be tough; Superman is the only guy tough enough that bullets dont ruin the day, and Superman never enlisted. You don't even have to be human; there's the youtube video of the chimp with the AK, proving that my job can literally be done by a monkey. A dog could go out and take a bullet just as easily as I could, but the terrorists are less likely to shoot dogs.

So, then they told me I was too crippled to do my job; that I wasnt even fit to die right. How do you think that felt? What was I supposed to think when they said I was too useless to be a sandbag, a bullet magnet, a target on the rifle range; unfit to be dead weight; I couldnt even “die gloriously for the regiment” properly.

Thats not what hurt the most, though. My unit, where I had served for 17 years, with men I considered family.... No, better than family; I refuse to speak to many my blood relations as I consider them dishonorable scum. These men that I had called brothers for so many years booted me out the back door without a goodby, no thank you, no “you'll be missed”, nothing. They were glad to see me go, it seemed. And I lost several hundred men that had been family in just a few hours.

Luckily, Im too arrogant, egotistical, and full of myself for that to bother me for much longer than it took to order a beer. But not everyone is as shallow a jerk as I am. Think about that, and look at those veterans leaving service. Think what they are losing, and how; that boot in the seat of the pant followed with a string of rude words. No more platoon of family crowding in constantly. No constant support structure, whether they want it or not. Just their lonely little selves, trying to figure out how someone can be too broken to die “properly” but still be able to have a life. At times like these, the two songs “Suicide is Painless” and “Paint it Black” take on special meaning.

I wont advocate it. Personally, I want to keep living just because it pisses a few liberals I know off. We each find our own reasons. But we must do more to reach these vets, to build the family. As I say so often, “We have to care for each other. No one else will.” Some days, thats the only reason I push, the hope that tomorrow I may find another brother to help. And thats the best reason in the world to me.