Suicide always makes me immediately think of that brilliant kid who went off the top of a dorm at college. You jiust can't get some of them out of your head. Your discussion of guns and white men with suicide will be challenging for most.
Challenging or not, it is reality.
My father was also a lifer, enlisting during 1933 at age 14, lying about his age, to send home money to help feed the family of 18 siblings. He lost two of his brothers during WWII, another in Korea. He served in combat during both wars. Came home a mess, yet built his life and family. He lost my two older brothers in SE Asia, and that finished him. He was alive when I came home a mess from SE Asia, a bare fraction of what he once was, but still capable of enjoying the grandchildren he lived for.
I'm far from a specialist understanding the state of mind for returning vets. When I arrived home I was told I would never walk again. 18 months later I passed the physical for the NYPD. I am not a superman, merely a man who refuses to be held back by anything. Not always successful, but plodding on. Family, good friends, music and poetry helped me immensely.
We are each effected by multiple traumas in this life. Everyone has their own horror stories. Some rise, some fall. I never accepted excuses for myself, neither did my parents, grandparents and most other extended family. However, having the support of an extremely large extended family can be crucial. I don't hold with theories of MIT. I see morals as a convenience, when inconvenient readily cast aside. Some men can kill with impunity, others are horrified with guilt. Others make do as necessary, and survive as best they can, live their lives. It is certainly not an all or nothing situation. Some suffer guilt for surviving when others did not, some suffer guilt for the horrors they committed, intensity varies and often diminishes with time, some are not bothered at all. Suffice it to say, from my point of view, one has a job to do and does it to the best of his or her ability, consequences be damned. Harsh as perceived by some, but pragmatic. Life goes on whatever. Life is a gift to be lived to its fullest, not wasted by moping. Everyone's definition of morals differ, and living by one's choices often includes lying to oneself that only stops with self respect. At times we all do what is expedient. One must be honest with oneself about that expediency and the underlying reasons. Live with the decisions, or not, it is the individual's choice, even in the face of the worst adversity when all seems beyond self control. No excuses.
I'm 70. I am recovering from a relatively recent series of heart issues that culminated with the benefit of a new, more powerful, pacemaker/defrib device implant. During the various therapies I kept telling the doctors and nurses nothing they did would prevent my death. I told them a toilet seat would fall from the sky, hitting me in the head. They couldn't believe I was joking in the face of death. Not the fear they usually experience from patients. They'd enter my room with stern faces, to find me listening to music, reading or listening to poetry with family and friends if they were visiting, and left with smiles on their faces most of the time. While in pain I flirted with the nurses, women technicians and women doctors, whether my wife was present or not and she knew I would recover. I'll never be as strong or as vigorous as I was a mere six months ago, but I refuse to not enjoy my life, my wife, my children, grandchildren, friends and neighbors, not to mention my very huge, stupid, cowardly dog, and our midget cat who dominates and tortures him. One chooses whether or not to enjoy the beauty this life offers, or wallow in the self loathing pits of the ugly.
