I've thought of this memorial day the past two memorial days. I was going to close the shop a few hours early this memorial day and hang out with my family. A regular coustomers who is a veteran came in a few hours before close. I know the guy pretty well. I know he's a mess. He's told me many stories from his two tours in Iraq, some hilarious, others disturbingly macabre. He lost a job he loved this year over panic attacks related to his time in the service. He likes to stay until close. I stayed open. He didn't say much, which isn't like him, I didn't pry.
A year ago I went hiking. It was the Thursday before Easter, and weekdays in spring aren't known for being bush days in the woods. This day was no different. My plan (actually my backup plan, but that's another story) was to hike Nippletop and Dial mountains. As I'm gathering my gear at my car, a truck pulls in. The driver asks, "is this the trailhead for Nippletop?" We were the only two people on the mountain that day, and we happened to arrive a minute apart. He was a Marine veteran having served in Afghanistan. I told him I was former Army National Guard, quickly clarifying I never deployed. As we hiked together, he told me about messing up his knee. I forget how, but I think it was on duty. He went through rehab, and shortly after getting clearance to return to regular duty he messed it up again. Faced with a desk job or not re-enlisting, he opted to get out. He and his wife were splitting up. She was from the area. He wasn't, and he was living at the time on his in-laws' couch. He still referred to her as his wife. He said he wanted to climb all the mountains that summer. I used that as a way to open the subject of suicide. There's an organization in the area called 46 Climbs that uses mountain hiking as a fundraiser for suicide awareness and prevention. This was the first time I'd met someone where I thought he would kill himself. Not that day, but some day. He was well aware of the veteran suicide statistics, and my hope is an organization like 46 Climbs would give him an outlet as well as a safety net. He didn't have a map of the mountains, just a book on them. I gave him my extra map (I had three identical ones). We didn't exchange contact info, so I have no idea what he's up to. I think of him occasionally, and I hope he's ok.
I read a great article a couple of years ago that was talking about how traditional warrior cultures had great ways of re-integrating people into society. One of the things that helped was some kind of catharsis, usually with other vets. We're an extremely isolated culture at the best of times (and technology is certainly making this worse), and it's doubly hard to process something like wartime experiences when there's no longer any community to speak of when you get home.