Suicides are reaching epidemic proportions, and statistics show that for the fifth year in row the numbers are increasing in the US military. It’s cross generational and it’s affecting troops, veterans and their families.
Kim Ruocco’s husband took his life while at the height of his military career. Major John Ruocco served as a Marine Corps pilot
for 15 years. A really good one according to his wife, Kim, and the accolades don’t stop there.
“My husband was a really great dad and husband and a superior marine and helicopter pilot, but he battled PTSD and depression and unresolved trauma and grief.
I had at the time two boys who were 8 and 10 years old so I was really thrown into this world of surviving a military suicide loss,” Ruocco said.
As a social worker, Kim often sensed subtle changes in her husband’s behavior.
“I asked him directly if he was feeling so badly that he was thinking about suicide,” Ruocco said. “And he said I would never do that to you and the boys, and then he killed himself a couple of hours later.”
John became part of a growing statistic of active military and veterans who have committed suicide. The latest Pentagon research of the US Military states that in the past five years the suicides have increase, with more than 500 in 2018.
A Veterans Administration report indicates some 6,000 veteran suicides in the US each year between 2005 and 2017.
Dr. Heather Kelly is director of military and veterans’ health policy at the American Psychological Association.
“It’s a complicated problem and lots of different reasons for different people,” Kelly said. “About half of those military service members who die by suicide have never deployed much less seen combat. They’re subject to life stress that has nothing to do with their military service just like the rest of us.
After her husband’s death, Ruocco started the Assistance Program for Survivors or TAPS.
“When there is a suicide, they’re immediately connected to us and so we’re able to reach out to those survivors, assess their needs stabilize those with trauma, with mental health issues, with suicide risk and then help them with suicide specific issues like how do you tell your children,” Ruocco said.
To prevent those in the army to commit suicide, the American Bible Society has created the “God Understands Campaign” to help service members who are battling depression and other mental health challenges. It includes testimonies from people like Bryan Flanery who attempted suicide while in the army.
“Almost every day at the start of my day I remember sitting in that empty barracks room and I let myself feel those emotions again. The hopelessness, the pain, the anguish. Then I look at my life today and I see how God truly didn’t put a band-aid on it but he truly restored my soul,” Flanery said.
“The emphasis behind God understands is for people to listen to other stories to realize they’re not the only one who’s feeling like they’ve failed, they’re not the only one to walk this journey by themselves,” said Gordon Groseclose, a retired Army Chaplain who works with the God Understands Campaign.
Groseclose says social distancing in these times only magnifies feelings of isolation, and that could cause the already growing suicide numbers among service members to spike. He says the campaign provides a unique human and divine connection.
“The way of ending veteran suicide is with Jesus,” Flanery said.
In fact, experts say faith is what’s called a “protective factor” when it comes to suicide. In other words, those who identify with faith are at a lower risk for suicide.
Source: CBN News