The email was waiting for me in the morning. I knew by the subject line, "Marty," what had happened so I pretended not to see it. Made myself some breakfast: tea, a blueberry poptart, some strawberries. Read the newspaper. Three of them actually. Did what I could to delay the inevitable.
The news of Marty's suicide came as no great surprise. Several months earlier I received a suicide note, also by email. I called the police in Colorado and asked them to check on him and to call me from his house. Marty had no memory of sending the email or what he wrote in it. He was high on meth.
I tried to get him help. He wanted help. At least that's what he told me. As I found out, he'd been using for almost 10 years. It started when he was still in the army and until recently he hadn't experienced the worst of the drugs' side effects. But he'd grown increasingly depressed and began craving more drugs. He appeared on the edge of descending into an uncontrollable spiral of dependency and depression. He said his meth use was "kicking his ass." He needed help. Fast.
The woman I talked to at the military health center said that there were no free substance abuse counseling services for veterans. I asked her to repeat that a couple of times because I thought I didn't hear her correctly. She did say that Marty could come in for a free consultation, though. I told her I received a suicide note by email so we were beyond the point of needing professional affirmation of the obvious. I asked if there was someone I could talk to who might be able to tell me what substance abuse services were available where he lived, but again the answer was no. I was on my own with the internet. I did the best google search I could.
So this is how we treat a 20-year army veteran. Thanks for your service, we appreciate it, but we can't help you with a habit you developed in uniform. Good luck.
Admittedly, Marty wasn't optimistic about his chances of kicking his meth habit. It's a highly addictive drug and the recovery rate is bleak. He was even less optimistic about the chances counseling could help him. But there was a window in which he acknowledged that there were people with more information on how to kick a meth habit than us and it might do him some good to talk to them. I will forever regret allowing him to talk me out of coming to Colorado and sorting this out in person. I've since heard that there are low-cost counseling services available through the military but I don't know for sure. All I can say is that I asked and wasn't told about them. Subsequent efforts by other friends to get him help fell on deaf ears. The drugs had taken over. The window had closed.
You must be thinking that Marty was some kind of loser. He wasn't. He dreamed of getting a Ph.D. in chemistry like his father and putting it to good use cleaning up the environment. He had a strong work ethic and the intelligence to accomplish many things, but the drug use distorted his thinking and ruined his life. He was a good friend, a Special Forces medic and demolitions specialist. He loved animals.
The choice to hang himself was Marty's alone, even if he was in the midst of a drug-induced depression. I'm not trying to absolve him of responsibility for the choices he made. But surely we can agree that no one who serves our country and asks for help should die hanging from a tree because he couldn't figure out how and where to get help when he wanted it. Surely we owe the men and women in uniform better than this.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed, ruling that the abysmal state of mental health care for veterans -- who commit an average of 18 suicides per day -- was a violation of their constitutional rights. The Department of Veterans Affairs may be incompetent, as the court declared, but the rest of us deserve equal scorn for failing to hold our government accountable to the men and women who put their lives on the line, defending our freedom.
Today is the two-year anniversary of Marty's death. As I re-read our emails and look at the pictures, I can't help wondering what might have been. No doubt, like friends and families of too many other veterans. Happy Memorial Day.