Soldier’s lies unravel after he kills himself
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, February 24, 2008
HEIDELBERG, Germany — Spc. Brenden Teetsell stood out. He was 6-foot-6 — but it was more than that. He was talkative, enthusiastic, smart and likable.
But Teetsell, it turned out, was also deeply troubled.
The 20-year-old satellite operator with the 5th Signal Command hanged himself Feb. 7 in his Mannheim barracks. He used bedsheets and a stairwell to end his life, just after Criminal Investigation Command investigators had spent the morning questioning him for apparently impersonating an officer.
He had been claiming to be a captain and that he’d been shot in the leg in Iraq, pastors at a California church told CID after the pastors decided to check up on him.
That long-distance telephone call was to be the first thread in the rapid unraveling of Teetsell’s life.
“It went from zero to 60 that morning,” said Lt. Col. Jay Chapman, commander of the 72nd Expeditionary Signal Battalion.
“We didn’t see symptoms. We’re really upset with ourselves. Nobody would have considered him to be feeling the way he was inside.”
Teetsell, who enlisted in 2006, had never been to Iraq. He hurt his knee before his unit deployed last fall and was reassigned to a different unit.
His death comes at a time when Army officials are grappling with a record number of suicides, even as they’ve stepped up suicide prevention efforts.
One major contributor to the increase in soldier suicides is thought to be the disruption to intimate and family relationships caused by long, repeated deployments.
But Teetsell had never deployed. He did not appear depressed, Chapman said his commanders told him. He was not aware he was being investigated until the day he died, Chapman said.
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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52770
Teetsell was not deployed, not wounded in combat and seemed to have been troubled by many accounts. Why didn't anyone do anything when they seemed to have thougth he was troubled? Why was he able to get into the military if he was already troubled? There are so many questions to this sad story of a life ended too soon.
I knew this Soldier. He was not outwardly "troubled". He was a sweet kid. Did he have troubles? Obviously, but don't say someone should have seen it. It wasn't so obvious.
ReplyDeleteI wish there were more answers on this story. It's a very sad story. Glad to know he was a sweet kid but wish there was more information on him. It's very hard to understand. Thank you for the comment.
ReplyDeleteI knew Brenden since 6th grade and he was about as far from troubled as you can get. He was brilliant and talented and given what he meant to so many people, if anyone could have stopped it they would have.
ReplyDeleteSometimes no matter what we do is not good enough to stop them from taking their own lives. Most of the time it's because we don't know what to do. Take PTSD for instance. When they have PTSD, they lose hope, among other things. If people have no understanding of what PTSD is and what it does, then they do the best they can with what they know, but if they understood PTSD, they'd know how to really help.
ReplyDeleteWhen they commit suicide, too many times the family will say they had no clue they were hurting so much. They just don't talk about it while they are thinking about it. Some don't know how to ask for help but for others, they lost the belief they deserve any help at all. The best thing we can do is to pay attention as much as we can and let them know we care.