People kill themselves because they feel they no longer belong, psychologist and leading suicide expert Thomas Joiner says. ‘A separation solution to an attachment problem’ And as National Guardsmen deploy more often in response to fires, floods, storms, and civil unrest, he knew the solution wouldn’t come with the end of the forever wars. He knew the National Guard needed help to deal with the challenges of sending recently deployed soldiers back to civilian jobs, families, and lives, usually without the resources that come from daily interactions with others who have had similar experiences - or from the resources allotted to active-duty soldiers. He knew maintaining connections - connections who can “interrupt” when things feel dire - could save lives. After he returned in 2012, Campbell sat on review boards for more than 70 suicides across the active Army.īy then, he better understood what had happened to him, and that normal responses to war can transfer to peacetime life in a negative way. “It’s not what she said, it’s a matter of, she said something.”Įxactly a year later, Campbell headed to Afghanistan as part of the provincial reconstruction team in Kunar, to which the 182nd’s Delta Company, second platoon, a Massachusetts National Guard unit, was attached. His girlfriend - now wife - had no idea she was intervening. “To this day, I cannot remember the conversation,” Campbell says. And then he received a phone call from his girlfriend. The day he didn’t want to rehearse anymore, he rode his motorcycle up the road only to find a car parked at the spot. “I had to get my affairs in order before I executed my suicide so my kids would get the benefits.” “I don’t know how many times I rehearsed it, so when it came down to the execution, it would be flawless,” he says. The Army would not list his death as suicide, and that’s the way he wanted it. Jose Escamilla/Army)Ĭampbell, who suffered mental and physical pain - in part, he says, from traumatic brain injuries during previous Iraq and Afghanistan deployments - rehearsed his own death: an accidental drive off a cliff on a Texas road with a tricky turn. Campbell, the outgoing senior enlisted adviser for 188th Infantry Brigade, 1st Army Division East, smiles during his farewell speech at a change-of-responsibility ceremony Sept.
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