Diary Of An Iraq Vet's Suicide

SLWeekly:

It was just after midnight on Dec. 31, 2007, and bitterly cold outside, when two Ogden police officers knocked on the door of Jason Ermer's home.

Earlier that night, Danny Murchie, an addictions counselor at the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA) Salt Lake City office, had called Ogden police and asked for a courtesy check on Ermer, his 28-year-old client, a recent Iraq war veteran. Murchie had talked with Ermer and feared he might harm himself.

When no one answered at the Ermer home, police followed footprints in the snow a few blocks into the Ogden Canyon foothills. Near a large boulder, a man's body lay in the snow, blood pooling near his head. His breathing was slow and gargly.

Read the whole story: SLWeekly

Comments

[demfriend]

Too many of our soldiers are not getting what they need as far as mental health treatment and support so the military is staffing up their hospitals/medical centers and treatment facilities to help the PTSD and suicidal suffering troops returning. Those who know me from the site and my comments know I have been unemployed since May nd this changes next Monday when I start at the San Diego Military Medical Center AKA Balboa Naval Hospital. I will be working with these who have come back broken/injured and I pray I can give them what I can to help. his family is an example of just not enough given by different people and organizations as the family should be helped to understand and taught the best ways to support and watch for suicidal ideations and weapons should be dealt with. As many of the vets from vietnam I have worked with in the past who are both mentally ill and homeless by choice making peace with yourself and what seen or where you were and what you did at war is the most difficult thing.... Viet vet kill themselves with not too many counting them and I fear the pentagon hides too man things and number and the needs are not met because of this.

[thepoliticalcat]

Whatever this man did -- and he was no saint or angel -- he suffered way too much for his young life. I'm sure he saw things in Iraq, given Donald Rumsfeld's policies, that broke his mind. Poor kid.

[whit4brains]

What a sad story. I really hope the Obama administration will do what it can to support our troops and veterans the way they deserve. The VA needs to be prepared to handle all the cases of PTSD that these returning soldiers are going to be dealing with.

I can't understand why his wife would get upset and want the gun back in the house. Anyone who was in the shape he was in doesn't need to have access to a loaded gun. That's a real shame.

And it stated both the parents were on medications for their back problems but didn't state what reason his wife was on them. It is too easy in this country to get prescriptions for painkillers. I imagine it would have been very hard for him to kick his addiction with so much access to other people's medications.