I lost my 29 year old son almost exactly one year ago...He was a proud Marine who spent three tours in Iraq which left him with severe PTSD and a TBI. We had no idea about the TBI until we requested his medical records following his death. Curt was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps 5 years ago. During this time he struggled daily from the flashbacks, anxiety, insomnia, anger, road rage and general confusion that these ailments produce. He was being seen at the Dayton VA Hospital and treated for PTSD but NEVER was treated for the TBI. I seriously don't think that he ever KNEW he had a TBI. It was only mentioned once in his post-deployment briefing. He was never, ever treated for it. He would deploy for 9 or 10 months, spend 2 or 3 months stateside and then return to Iraq, all while struggling with the PTSD and more debilitating, the TBI. On the morning of 1/3/12, at about 9:00 a.m. he sent a text to his family and friends that he felt he could no longer live a normal, healthy life...the PTSD, alcohol, and all the symptoms that went along with having endured three years of war had taken their toll. He was the light of everyone's life; no one ever thinks about him without seeing that beautiful smile and those big green eyes. He loved the outdoors, he worked hard, he owned his own home, he was a son everyone would want to have. Unlike those above, I'm angry as hell. I'm angry at the Marine Corps. for not treating the TBI and for not notifying him OR his family of that physical wound, and I'm angry that they sent him back home to us with these horrifying symptoms of which we knew nothing about how to handle. I feel that his death was totally avoidable had someone at the VA reached out to me, his mother and his emergency contact. On 11/25/12, his last appointment at the VA, he told his therapist of his impending feeling of doom. He didn't think he was going to live much longer. He could no longer drive without road rage, he couldn't sleep or eat, he self-medicated with alcohol and pot, everywhere he looked he saw reminders of Iraq. He carried an unbelievable rage around with him everywhere he went. He couldn't stand the site of a middle-easterner. It would throw him into a wild rage. These are all the things that were quoted in his medical record. To me, a nonprofessional but a person who has raised two children and feel I have some COMMON SENSE, why would a therapist let him drive out of that parking lot after he had just told her that he is afraid of hurting another driver on the road because he cannot contain his road rage; he had no tolerance for BS. Six weeks later, my son was dead by a self-inflicted shot gun wound to his chest. He left a note apologizing to all of us; he felt that he had let us down; he wasn't the person he was raised to be nor ever wanted to be; he hated hurting all who loved him. Apparently he had spent 1/1 and 1/2/12 alone in his home looking at family pictures that he had accumulated over the years. He lit a candle on his coffee table and carried the loaded gun around for two days waiting for the "right moment" to take care of business. I cannot bear to think of my son being alone and in that situation for those long two days. As I am an hour away from his home, you can only imagine what was going through my mind all the way there: "Curt, my baby boy, please, please be there when I get there. We will get you the help you need. Why didn't you tell us how badly you felt?" all the while thinking of what a crappy mother I must have been not to have noticed his suffering. When I pulled into his street, the first vehicle that caught my eye was the Coroner's van along with several police and fire vehicles. No ambulance. I knew in that instant my precious son was gone. I dropped to my knees in the snow covered street and screamed the loudest, saddest scream that I had ever heard come out of a human being....A police officer helped me to my feet and tried to help me put my coat on. At that very second, my motherly instinct kicked in: I had to get to my baby boy. He lie there all alone with no one who loved him to hold him, kiss him, be there for him. Tragically, the police officers would not let me in his home. I regret that to this day. I wanted to be there for my precious son. I wanted to see him, hold him, talk to him, smell him, all of the things I would never be able to do again.....for as long as I wanted to. I supposed the officers thought they were doing me a favor by not letting me witness this horrific scene but I wouldn't have seen it as horrific. My son lie there alone, had passed, and of all people he needed, it was me, his mother. I never got the chance to ever hold him in my arms again. I wanted to hold his hands, kiss his forehead, run my hands through his hair, caress him to me....for those were the last moments I would be able to do this. The police whisked us away to a neighbor's house for what seemed hours. They removed him from his home and we did not see him for two days...he was held at the morgue in Montgomery Co. and then transferred to the funeral home. The next time I saw him, he was lying in a casket in his full Dress Blues, just as though he was asleep. I could not hold him, I could barely touch him, I could barely reach him to kiss him goodbye. I wanted to hold his hands; they had gloves on him. I wanted to talk to him and tell him what a wonderful, fun son he was and how I felt privileged to be his mother. He was the light of my life. Now he rests at the Dayton National Cemetery where he worked so hard to provide a beautiful, peaceful resting place for all of his fallen brethren. He is buried between two young soldiers, also 29, who were KIA; one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Ironically they were all born between March and May of 1982....His final resting place is at the top of a small knoll in the middle of the cemetery under a beautiful tree. It is breathtaking to say the least; a mini Arlington Cemetery, where he requested to be buried. He asked that all of his work buddies take good care of him when he arrived there and that he would always be there to keep his eye on them making sure they were carrying out all of the beautiful projects he had in progress. There is not a minute that goes by that I do not think about Curt and what might have been had that therapist made a call to me that day when he finally had the courage to reach out for help and bare his soul. Would it have saved him? Would the end have been the same only further down the road? I have pledged my life down to my last breath that our returning Veterans and their families get the care and treatment that they so deserve and so need. So....if you are asking me if I am angry over the loss of my son....I must say that I am.....not angry at him but angry at the bureaucratic BS that let him down....Proud Marine Mom, Jody Merrill
Posted by: Jody at 1/9/2013 3:48 AM
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