Transforming the

Terrible Secret of Suicide

By Greg Walker (ret)
USA Special Forces

I wrote this article some years ago and have rewritten it today in memory of my Brother, Friend, and fellow SOCOM Care Coalition co-worker, former U.S. Navy SEAL, Mike Day. Mike, severely wounded in 2007 during a raid, took his own life earlier this year. After recovering physically from his gunshot wounds he began working on the behavioral health side of the coin and became an amazing SOCOM Care Coalition case manager and advocate. In 2020, his book Perfectly Wounded was published and became an instant success. Somewhere along the way Mike’s life again began to slip into the dark spiral of suicidal ideation and self- despair. His passing shocked our shared communities to their core. Mike’s book, his story, is important and more relevant today in lieu of his passing. His death reminds us to be constantly vigilant regarding our own mental health and that of our Brothers and Sisters, our families, and our friends.

This paragraph from Mike’s book reveals how his inner anguish and pain re- surfaced three years later but this time fatally. “…I fully believed I was thinking rationally, I know now that I was not. My irrational thoughts had started repeating themselves: the world would be better off without me. I don’t care anymore, I just want out of here. I’m a horrible person. My future will just be filled with more of the same stress.”

I have re-written and updated this article because Mike, this past March, was wrong. He was an amazing person; and we are not better off without him here. And his life and his story as recounted in Perfectly Wounded is now more than ever a “must read” for us all.

Because the darkness can resettle in.

Lest we forget — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX3F2hvFhIc

In 1962, my grandfather on my father’s side took his own life. This after murdering his estranged wife. His murder-suicide shook our immediate and extended families to the core. I was just eight years old and loved both deeply.

The aftershocks and ripples of that singular act were catastrophic for many, many years. My father, his oldest son, changed entirely as he grew older. His anger, fear, remorse, and self-hatred that came from the event consumed him. He isolated

—never explored counseling at any time although he could have afforded the best
—and died without meaningful resolution.

Twelve years ago, given the incredible training and real-world experience I had working with the U.S. Special Operations Command’s Care Coalition as a Warrior Care provider and in lieu of nearly ten years on the street as a police officer with experience investigating suicides and attempted suicides…I investigated my grandfather’s most terrible act.

I discovered no one else in the family had — to include my dad and his two brothers. And I discovered what we all thought was an accurate account was not. We had all lived our lives believing bad information, trauma generated recollections, and the masking of the event even having occurred (The Terrible Secret).

I learned the facts from reading the reports and asking questions, lots of questions, of those of our families still alive and willing to talk. I then shared the true story with everyone to include my father in a three-page letter.

The healing process began…for those who wanted to heal.

I was blessed to spend ten years working with our most seriously wounded, injured, ill, and suicidal. I was well educated along the way —and well trained. I was privileged to participate with equally skilled (many much more so) advocates and clinicians, police officers and hospital staffs, and family members of great courage, to successfully intervene in active suicidal situations.

We continue to lose between 35-40 Active Duty/National Guard/Reservists and Veterans a day to suicide. That is a body count we should be ashamed of. Too many trans-generational war fighters over the past 20 years of ongoing armed conflict. Fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, husbands, wives, grandchildren, friends, family…deceased by their own hands.

There are no memorial walls for those who take their own lives. The stigma of suicide ensures silence, shame, and secrecy. However, this cultural branding is changing. We know more about what takes our loved ones to the precipice of death by their own hands. And we are learning more to care for those left behind and to break the chain that suicide in a family or in a military unit can create unless challenged.

To kill the Most Terrible Secret you must expose it to the light of Love, Truth, and Self-Care. You must band together with like-minded warriors and fight the good fight.

And if the suicide is successful you then turn to those left behind, as I have, and self-educate, self-care, and seek professional counseling. Breaking the chain is possible – and important – as is re-learning to love the ones we have lost.

Because suicide is not painless.

MSG (ret) Leroy Petry, Medal of Honor, on the challenges of adversity and embracing one’s life because “we only get one go-around here on earth and if we don’t take care of it…it’s not going to last.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMXSr8S-nVQ

Here are some of the exceptional resources in the war on military service-connected suicide that I have professionally worked for or with and with great success.

“No Fallen Comrade Left Behind”

Lines for Life Military Helpline
https://www.linesforlife.org/mhl/

Military One Source Confidential Counseling
https://www.militaryonesource.mil/confidential-help

The Mighty Oaks Veterans Warriors Programs
https://www.mightyoaksprograms.org/

The Green Beret Foundation
https://www.greenberetfoundation.org/

The Cedar Hills Hospital Military Program
https://cedarhillshospital.com/treatment-services/the-military-program/

Wounded Warrior Project Veteran PTSD Treatment Support Resources
https://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/programs/mental-wellness/veteran-ptsd-treatment-support-resources

VA Military Crisis Line
https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/