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[R.I.P.] Veterans advocate kills self after war tours

repeter

repeter

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Veterans advocate kills self after war tours

Handsome and friendly, Clay Hunt so epitomized a vibrant Iraq veteran that he was chosen for a public service announcement reminding veterans that they aren't alone.

The 28-year-old former Marine corporal earned a Purple Heart after taking a sniper's bullet in his left wrist. He returned to combat in Afghanistan. Upon his return home, he lobbied for veterans on Capitol Hill, road-biked with wounded veterans and performed humanitarian work in Haiti and Chile.

Then, on March 31, Hunt bolted himself in his Houston apartment and shot himself.
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This man should be rememberred, for everything he did for others, and for what we could not do for him.
 
Stories like this about veterans always get to me. It seems like the military is working hard to get people the mental health services they need and to remove the stigma of PTSD in the military, but it always makes me sad that some guys deal with so much in their own heads, particularly when they commit suicide and it's a surprise to their families. It's easy to say that veterans deserve the best mental healthcare and that such services will solve all these problems, but it's clearly much bigger than that. At least he'll be remembered for all the good he did.
 
Hear Hear RIP Brother :(
 
I was so proud when I first saw that commercial starring the older war heroes, telling our younger troops its ok to get help, not to let the enemy win after they get home.

And I worry how many will still fall through the cracks, when someone who obviously had a support network couldn't cope.

I hope this country continues in its efforts to deal with this problem.
 
What if...? said:
I was so proud when I first saw that commercial starring the older war heroes, telling our younger troops its ok to get help, not to let the enemy win after they get home.

And I worry how many will still fall through the cracks, when someone who obviously had a support network couldn't cope.

I hope this country continues in its efforts to deal with this problem.
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I have mixed feelings on this. Part of me wants to DIS him for taking the coward’s way out, particularly considering the influential role he accepted in representing vets. He knew there were other options but he chose the easy way out and chose to hurt those who loved him anyway. It’s a selfish thing to do, no matter how bad things get.

The other part of me wants to empathize with his situation and consider him a hero for his service and his contributions to fellow service members who struggle upon returning from combat.

In the end, I don’t think it is helpful to glorify this individual or give him much press time as he ultimately sets a bad example for others who struggle with PTSD and real life issues.

My opinion might sound cold hearted to some of you but it isn’t nearly as cold hearted as the choice he made.
 
The professor I had for counseling psychology was big on the issue of normative male alexithymia. Men are taught that being a man means being stoic and strong, and above all else to avoid showing signs of vulnerability or weakness. He said that the way society tells us to “be a man” leaves us vulnerable to **** that we can’t cope with on our own. (For veterans, this is watching friends die and losing a job that defines who you are.)

Instead of seeking help from counselors or priests or even just easing pressure by talking to our friends about it like women do, we “man up” by bottling it inside and go out of our way to maintain the impression that everything is alright. We struggle to maintain this manly façade so hard that we often have difficulty admitting even to ourselves that problems exist.

We avoid ruminating on this by subsuming ourselves in the “work hard, play hard” mentality. Can’t think about your problems when you’re working to exhaustion 60 hours a week and getting drunk and laid when off the clock. This lets **** stagnate and probably contributes to men being much more prone to abusing drugs like alcohol and lashing out violently.


GPS_Flex said:
I have mixed feelings on this. Part of me wants to DIS him for taking the coward’s way out, particularly considering the influential role he accepted in representing vets. He knew there were other options but he chose the easy way out and chose to hurt those who loved him anyway. It’s a selfish thing to do, no matter how bad things get.

The other part of me wants to empathize with his situation and consider him a hero for his service and his contributions to fellow service members who struggle upon returning from combat.

In the end, I don’t think it is helpful to glorify this individual or give him much press time as he ultimately sets a bad example for others who struggle with PTSD and real life issues.

My opinion might sound cold hearted to some of you but it isn’t nearly as cold hearted as the choice he made.
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However "unmanly" his caving into weakness and committing suicide may have been, it sounds like he was a real man 'til the end.
 
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Befuddled_Stoner said:
The professor I had for counseling psychology was big on the issue of normative male alexithymia. Men are taught that being a man means being stoic and strong, and above all else to avoid showing signs of vulnerability or weakness. He said that the way society tells us to “be a man” leaves us vulnerable to **** that we can’t cope with on our own. (For veterans, this is watching friends die and losing a job that defines who you are.)

Instead of seeking help from counselors or priests or even just easing pressure by talking to our friends about it like women do, we “man up” by bottling it inside and go out of our way to maintain the impression that everything is alright. We struggle to maintain this manly façade so hard that we often have difficulty admitting even to ourselves that problems exist.

We avoid ruminating on this by subsuming ourselves in the “work hard, play hard” mentality. Can’t think about your problems when you’re working to exhaustion 60 hours a week and getting drunk and laid when off the clock. This lets **** stagnate and probably contributes to men being much more prone to abusing drugs like alcohol and lashing out violently.




However "unmanly" his caving into weakness and committing suicide may have been, it sounds like he was a real man 'til the end.
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Until he gave up and decided his friends and family should bear the pain and suffering of dealing with his ugly suicide? Yeah, sounds like he was a real man in the end. If he was about to fall captive to an enemy who would torture him etc. I might agree but he had options and he made a choice.
 
GPS_Flex said:
Until he gave up and decided his friends and family should bear the pain and suffering of dealing with his ugly suicide? Yeah, sounds like he was a real man in the end. If he was about to fall captive to an enemy who would torture him etc. I might agree but he had options and he made a choice.
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You do realize that many people who commit suicide do under the belief that dying will be better for their family and friends because they won't be such a burden?

Nonetheless, I understand your position that selfishness could be a factor, but it's incredibly nonsensical, at the least, to assume that you understand all the factors surrounding his actions. You have no idea why he killed himself, if he thought he was doing his friends a favor, the amount of mental pressure he was under, if he had gotten help, it something triggered his decision and so on. You're assuming that he sat there like you or me in our healthy mental states and said "I choose to kill myself even though I have plenty of options". Making that assumption makes absolutely no sense.
 
GPS_Flex said:
Until he gave up and decided his friends and family should bear the pain and suffering of dealing with his ugly suicide? Yeah, sounds like he was a real man in the end. If he was about to fall captive to an enemy who would torture him etc. I might agree but he had options and he made a choice.
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Have you ever been to war? Seen mans wonton killing of his fellow man? the blood of your friends as they die in your arms? Have you seen the carnage and limbs obliterated from ied's, have you seen any of what this man has seen.

I am no sympathizer of suicide and am usually the harshest (I refused to go to an uncles funeral), but this guy had been through a hell, you could not even fathom, and even advocating for the wounded, and veterans, wasn't enough to silence the demons in his mind.


R.I.P brother.
 
While there are some that crack, it is not the prevelant or inevitable outcome.

I'll bet that the suicide/drug/alcohol rates for soldiers coming back from the Box is less than the college rate per 100k.
 
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