National Guard stands at crossroads of crisis
By Lara Salahi, The War Horse
Friday, Feb 10
Veterans or service members experiencing a mental health emergency can contact the Veteran Crisis Line at 988 or at 1-800-273-8255 and select option 1 for a VA staffer. Veterans, troops or their family members can also text 838255 or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net for assistance.
Army Sgt. Maj. Thomas Campbell didn’t intend to live long enough to make it to Afghanistan with the 182nd Infantry Regiment, a National Guard unit out of Massachusetts.
Campbell, a career infantryman in the Army, returned from Iraq in 2009 to an ended 20-year marriage and orders to head to the Sergeants Major Academy at Fort Bliss, Texas.
“When I get down to Fort Bliss, I’m by myself, I’m not busy, nobody’s in charge of me,” Campbell says. “I’m not in charge of anybody else — and I started to self-medicate.”
Campbell, 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. The Army would not list his death as suicide, and that’s the way he wanted it.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/02/10/national-guard-stands-at-crossroads-of-crisis/
