T
ThaddeusStevens
Guest
A Soldier's Suicide: Did He Have to Die?
By Kimberly Hefling The Associated Press
Thursday 20 December 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122007T.shtml
Sanford, North Carolina - Pfc. Jason Scheuerman nailed a suicide note to his barracks
closet in Iraq, stepped inside and shot himself.
"Maybe finaly I can get some peace," said the 20-year-old, misspelling "finally" but
writing in a neat hand.
His parents didn't find out about the note for well over a year, and only then when it
showed up in a government envelope in his father's rural North Carolina mailbox.
The one-page missive was among hundreds of pages of documents the soldier's family
obtained and shared with The Associated Press after battling a military bureaucracy they
feel didn't want to answer their questions, especially this: Why did Jason Scheuerman have
to die?
What the soldier's father, Chris, would learn about his son's final days would lead the
retired Special Forces commando, who teaches at Fort Bragg, to take on the very institution
he's spent his life serving - and ultimately prompt an investigation by the Army Inspector
General's office.
The documents, obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Chris
Scheuerman, reveal a troubled soldier kept in Iraq despite repeated signs he was going to
kill himself, including placing the muzzle of his weapon in his mouth multiple times.
Jason Scheuerman's story - pieced together with interviews and information in the
documents - demonstrates how he was failed by the very support system that was supposed to
protect him. In his case, a psychologist told his commanders to send him back to his unit
because he was capable of feigning mental illness to get out of the Army.
He is not alone. At least 152 U.S. troops have taken their own lives in Iraq and
Afghanistan since the two wars started, contributing to the Army's highest suicide rate in
26 years of keeping track. For the grieving parents, the answers don't come easily or quickly.
For Jason Scheuerman, death came on July 30, 2005, around 5:30 p.m., about 45 minutes
after his first sergeant told the teary-eyed private that if he was intentionally
misbehaving so he could leave the Army, he would go to jail where he would be abused.
When the call came out over the unit's radios that there had been a death, one soldier
would later tell investigators he suspected it was Scheuerman.
Scheuerman spent his early years on military posts playing GI Joe. The middle child, he
divided his time after his parents' divorce between his mother's house in Lynchburg, Va.,
and his father's in North Carolina where he went to high school.
He was nearly 6 feet tall and loved to eat. His mother, Anne, said sometimes at 10 p.m.
she'd find him defrosting chicken to grill.
Likable and witty, he often joked around - even dressing up like a clown one night at
church camp, said his pastor, Mike Cox of West Lynchburg Baptist Church. But he had a quiet,
reflective side, too, and sometimes withdrew, Cox said.
"You always knew how he felt. He wore his emotions on his sleeve," his mother said. "If
he was angry, you knew it. If he was upset, you knew it."
Scheuerman liked military history and writing, but decided college wasn't for him.
After a short stint in landscaping, he followed what seemed an almost natural path into the
military. His mother had spent a year in the Army, and his father, a physician's assistant,
retired as an Army master sergeant. One of his two brothers also joined and is now in
Afghanistan.
He enlisted in 2004 and was sent to Iraq from Fort Benning, Ga., in January 2005 with
the 3rd Infantry Division. On leave a few months later, Scheuerman told his father he was
having a hard time with combat and killing people.
"I've seen war," his father said. "I told him that a lot of what he was seeing was
normal. That we all feel it. That we're all afraid."
Back in Iraq, things didn't improve. One soldier - whose name was blacked out on the
documents like most others - said he saw Jason put the muzzle of his rifle in his mouth, and
told investigators other soldiers had seen him do something similar.
"He said it was a joke," the soldier said. "He said he had thought about it before but
didn't have a plan to do it."
Scheuerman was reprimanded for not bathing or shaving and spending too much time
playing video games. He misplaced a radio and didn't wear parts of his uniform. Sometimes,
Scheuerman was singled out for punishment, one soldier told an investigator. "I don't know
why," the soldier said. Another said his noncommissioned officers were yelling at him "more
days then not."
His platoon sergeant said in a disciplinary note that Scheuerman's actions put everyone
in danger. "If you continue on your present course of action, you may end up in a body bag,"
he wrote.
In another, his squad leader said, "You have put me into a position where I have to
treat you like a troublesome child. I hate being in this position. It makes me be someone I
don't like."
Scheuerman was made to do push-ups in front of Iraqi soldiers, which humiliated him.
As he was punished, "it appeared as though he was out of touch with reality; in a world
all his own," his platoon sergeant said in a report.
After the punishment, Scheuerman slept on the floor of his unit's operation's center in
Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.
An Army chaplain who met with him about a month before he died said his mood had
"drastically changed." He said Scheuerman demonstrated disturbing behavior by "sitting with
his weapon between his legs and bobbing his head on the muzzle." He told Scheuerman's
leaders to have his rifle and ammunition magazine "taken from him immediately" and for him
to undergo a mental health evaluation.
Scheuerman checked on a mental health questionnaire that he had thoughts about killing
himself, was uptight, anxious and depressed, had feelings of hopelessness and despair, felt
guilty and was having work problems. But in person, the psychologist said, he denied having
thoughts of suicide.
Less than a week later, Scheuerman's mother got an e-mail from her son telling her
goodbye. She contacted a family support official at Fort Benning and later received a call
saying her son had been checked and was fine. Later, her son sent her an instant message and
said her phone call had made things worse.
The same day as her call, Scheuerman's company commander requested a mental evaluation,
noting that the private was a "good soldier" but displays "distant, depression like symptoms."
Visiting with the psychologist for the second time, Scheuerman said he sometimes saw
other people on guard duty that other soldiers do not see, suggesting he was hallucinating.
And he said that if he wasn't diagnosed as having a mental problem, he was going to be in
trouble with his leader. Yet he again denied being suicidal, the psychologist reported.
The psychologist determined Scheuerman did not meet the criteria for a mental health
disorder, and that a screening test he had taken indicated he was exaggerating. He told
Scheuerman's leaders he was "capable of claiming mental illness in order to manipulate his
command."
Still, when he sent Scheuerman back to his barracks, he told the private's leaders that
if Scheuerman claimed to be depressed, to take it seriously. He recommended Scheuerman sleep
in an area where he could be watched, that most of his personal belongings and privileges be
taken away for his safety.
The evaluation "created in the leaders' minds the idea that the soldier was a
malingerer all along," an officer from his unit evaluating the case as part of a
post-suicide investigation would later determine.
Shortly after the psychologist's determination and a few weeks before he died,
Scheuerman's Internet and phone communication were shut off. His parents did not hear from
him again.
The night before he shot himself, his rifle - which had since been returned to him -
was found in a Humvee. The next morning, one soldier said Scheuerman "was quiet and seemed
depressed. He said he had a rough night and didn't sleep well."
Later that day, he was punished again and given 14 days of extra duty.
Scheuerman had tears in his eyes, but one of his noncommissioned officers said he was
surprisingly calm before he went to his room, weapon in hand.
"I told him to go upstairs and clean his gear and change his uniform," his squad leader
told investigators. "I was so angry with him, I went outside to smoke and talk to someone so
I didn't blow up."
Less than an hour later, he said he heard someone yelling that Scheuerman had done
something.
"At that point, I knew I was already too late," he said.
Scheuerman's body was discovered in a closet, blood streaming from his mouth.
Initially, Scheuerman's father said he trusted the Army would investigate his son's
death and take action.
"I did not want to believe that it was as bad as I thought it was, so I chose not to
make hasty judgments," Scheuerman said from his kitchen table, sitting beside his ex-wife,
whom he plans to remarry. "I chose to systematically try to get all the information that I
could and once I received all the information I could, my worst fears were realized."
Each document that arrived brought more pain.
When a copy of his son's suicide note appeared, Scheuerman broke down crying. In the
note, his son said he wanted to say goodbye, but his ability to contact the family was taken
away "like everything else." He said he'd brought dishonor on his family and his Army unit.
"I know you think I'm a coward for this but in the face of existing as I am now, I have
no other choice," Scheuerman wrote. "As the 1st Sgt said all I have to look forward to is a
butt-buddy in jail, not much of a future."
Chris Scheuerman wants to see a more thorough investigation, and some of his son's
leaders punished - perhaps even criminally charged - and the psychologist brought before a
medical peer review committee. "We will not see a statistical decrease in Army suicides
until the Army gets serious about holding people accountable when they do not do what they
are trained to do," he said.
Citing privacy, Maj. Nathan Banks, an Army public affairs officer, declined to discuss
the case.
Eventually, Jason Scheuerman's father sought the assistance of Rep. Bob Etheridge,
D-N.C., who spoke with Army Secretary Pete Geren on Oct. 1 and asked him to initiate an
investigation by the Inspector General's Office. Geren agreed.
The Scheuermans say they hope the investigation will bring about changes that will
prevent other suicides.
"The people that I trusted with the safety of my son killed him, and that hurts beyond
words because we are a family of soldiers," Scheuerman said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a new page describing the social aspects of American Fascism at
http://politicsusaweb.com/RootsOfFascism.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still the most concise explanation of how we are who we are:
"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress
of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her August claims, have been
born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing,
and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it
does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor
freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the
ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the
awful roar of its many waters."
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be
both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly
submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will
be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words
or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those
whom they oppress."
---Frederick Douglass
Source: Douglass, Frederick. [1857] (1985). "The Significance of
Emancipation in the West Indies." Speech, Canandaigua, New York, August 3,
1857; collected in pamphlet by author.
http://www.buildingequality.us/Quotes/Frederick_Douglass.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A reasonably just and well-ordered democratic society might be possible,
and . . . justice as fairness should have a special place among the political
conceptions in its political and social world. . . [M]any are prepared to accept the
conclusion that a just and well-ordered democratic society is not possible, and even
regard it as obvious. Isn't admitting it part of growing up, part of the inevitable
loss of innocence? But is this conclusion one we can so easily accept?
The answer we give to the question of whether a just democratic society is
possible and can be stable for the right reasons affects our background thoughts and
attitudes about the world as a whole. And it affects these thoughts and attitudes
before we come to actual politics, and limits or inspires how we take part in it. . .
If we take for granted as common knowledge that a just and well-ordered democratic
society is impossible, then the quality and tone of those attitudes will reflect that
knowledge. A cause of the fall of Wiemar's constitutional regime was that none of the
traditional elites of Germany supported its constitution or were willing to cooperate
to make it work. They no longer believed a decent liberal parliamentary regime was
possible. Its time had past.
The regime fell first to a series of authoritarian cabinet governments from 1930 to
1932. When these were increasingly weakened by their lack of popular support,
President Hindenburg was finally persuaded to turn to Hitler, who had such support and
whom conservatives thought they could control.
~ John Rawls "Political Liberalism" pg. lx
__________________________________________________________________
This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in
my efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights,
economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this
constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section
107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the
material in this post is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this post for purposes of your own that
go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
By Kimberly Hefling The Associated Press
Thursday 20 December 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122007T.shtml
Sanford, North Carolina - Pfc. Jason Scheuerman nailed a suicide note to his barracks
closet in Iraq, stepped inside and shot himself.
"Maybe finaly I can get some peace," said the 20-year-old, misspelling "finally" but
writing in a neat hand.
His parents didn't find out about the note for well over a year, and only then when it
showed up in a government envelope in his father's rural North Carolina mailbox.
The one-page missive was among hundreds of pages of documents the soldier's family
obtained and shared with The Associated Press after battling a military bureaucracy they
feel didn't want to answer their questions, especially this: Why did Jason Scheuerman have
to die?
What the soldier's father, Chris, would learn about his son's final days would lead the
retired Special Forces commando, who teaches at Fort Bragg, to take on the very institution
he's spent his life serving - and ultimately prompt an investigation by the Army Inspector
General's office.
The documents, obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Chris
Scheuerman, reveal a troubled soldier kept in Iraq despite repeated signs he was going to
kill himself, including placing the muzzle of his weapon in his mouth multiple times.
Jason Scheuerman's story - pieced together with interviews and information in the
documents - demonstrates how he was failed by the very support system that was supposed to
protect him. In his case, a psychologist told his commanders to send him back to his unit
because he was capable of feigning mental illness to get out of the Army.
He is not alone. At least 152 U.S. troops have taken their own lives in Iraq and
Afghanistan since the two wars started, contributing to the Army's highest suicide rate in
26 years of keeping track. For the grieving parents, the answers don't come easily or quickly.
For Jason Scheuerman, death came on July 30, 2005, around 5:30 p.m., about 45 minutes
after his first sergeant told the teary-eyed private that if he was intentionally
misbehaving so he could leave the Army, he would go to jail where he would be abused.
When the call came out over the unit's radios that there had been a death, one soldier
would later tell investigators he suspected it was Scheuerman.
Scheuerman spent his early years on military posts playing GI Joe. The middle child, he
divided his time after his parents' divorce between his mother's house in Lynchburg, Va.,
and his father's in North Carolina where he went to high school.
He was nearly 6 feet tall and loved to eat. His mother, Anne, said sometimes at 10 p.m.
she'd find him defrosting chicken to grill.
Likable and witty, he often joked around - even dressing up like a clown one night at
church camp, said his pastor, Mike Cox of West Lynchburg Baptist Church. But he had a quiet,
reflective side, too, and sometimes withdrew, Cox said.
"You always knew how he felt. He wore his emotions on his sleeve," his mother said. "If
he was angry, you knew it. If he was upset, you knew it."
Scheuerman liked military history and writing, but decided college wasn't for him.
After a short stint in landscaping, he followed what seemed an almost natural path into the
military. His mother had spent a year in the Army, and his father, a physician's assistant,
retired as an Army master sergeant. One of his two brothers also joined and is now in
Afghanistan.
He enlisted in 2004 and was sent to Iraq from Fort Benning, Ga., in January 2005 with
the 3rd Infantry Division. On leave a few months later, Scheuerman told his father he was
having a hard time with combat and killing people.
"I've seen war," his father said. "I told him that a lot of what he was seeing was
normal. That we all feel it. That we're all afraid."
Back in Iraq, things didn't improve. One soldier - whose name was blacked out on the
documents like most others - said he saw Jason put the muzzle of his rifle in his mouth, and
told investigators other soldiers had seen him do something similar.
"He said it was a joke," the soldier said. "He said he had thought about it before but
didn't have a plan to do it."
Scheuerman was reprimanded for not bathing or shaving and spending too much time
playing video games. He misplaced a radio and didn't wear parts of his uniform. Sometimes,
Scheuerman was singled out for punishment, one soldier told an investigator. "I don't know
why," the soldier said. Another said his noncommissioned officers were yelling at him "more
days then not."
His platoon sergeant said in a disciplinary note that Scheuerman's actions put everyone
in danger. "If you continue on your present course of action, you may end up in a body bag,"
he wrote.
In another, his squad leader said, "You have put me into a position where I have to
treat you like a troublesome child. I hate being in this position. It makes me be someone I
don't like."
Scheuerman was made to do push-ups in front of Iraqi soldiers, which humiliated him.
As he was punished, "it appeared as though he was out of touch with reality; in a world
all his own," his platoon sergeant said in a report.
After the punishment, Scheuerman slept on the floor of his unit's operation's center in
Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.
An Army chaplain who met with him about a month before he died said his mood had
"drastically changed." He said Scheuerman demonstrated disturbing behavior by "sitting with
his weapon between his legs and bobbing his head on the muzzle." He told Scheuerman's
leaders to have his rifle and ammunition magazine "taken from him immediately" and for him
to undergo a mental health evaluation.
Scheuerman checked on a mental health questionnaire that he had thoughts about killing
himself, was uptight, anxious and depressed, had feelings of hopelessness and despair, felt
guilty and was having work problems. But in person, the psychologist said, he denied having
thoughts of suicide.
Less than a week later, Scheuerman's mother got an e-mail from her son telling her
goodbye. She contacted a family support official at Fort Benning and later received a call
saying her son had been checked and was fine. Later, her son sent her an instant message and
said her phone call had made things worse.
The same day as her call, Scheuerman's company commander requested a mental evaluation,
noting that the private was a "good soldier" but displays "distant, depression like symptoms."
Visiting with the psychologist for the second time, Scheuerman said he sometimes saw
other people on guard duty that other soldiers do not see, suggesting he was hallucinating.
And he said that if he wasn't diagnosed as having a mental problem, he was going to be in
trouble with his leader. Yet he again denied being suicidal, the psychologist reported.
The psychologist determined Scheuerman did not meet the criteria for a mental health
disorder, and that a screening test he had taken indicated he was exaggerating. He told
Scheuerman's leaders he was "capable of claiming mental illness in order to manipulate his
command."
Still, when he sent Scheuerman back to his barracks, he told the private's leaders that
if Scheuerman claimed to be depressed, to take it seriously. He recommended Scheuerman sleep
in an area where he could be watched, that most of his personal belongings and privileges be
taken away for his safety.
The evaluation "created in the leaders' minds the idea that the soldier was a
malingerer all along," an officer from his unit evaluating the case as part of a
post-suicide investigation would later determine.
Shortly after the psychologist's determination and a few weeks before he died,
Scheuerman's Internet and phone communication were shut off. His parents did not hear from
him again.
The night before he shot himself, his rifle - which had since been returned to him -
was found in a Humvee. The next morning, one soldier said Scheuerman "was quiet and seemed
depressed. He said he had a rough night and didn't sleep well."
Later that day, he was punished again and given 14 days of extra duty.
Scheuerman had tears in his eyes, but one of his noncommissioned officers said he was
surprisingly calm before he went to his room, weapon in hand.
"I told him to go upstairs and clean his gear and change his uniform," his squad leader
told investigators. "I was so angry with him, I went outside to smoke and talk to someone so
I didn't blow up."
Less than an hour later, he said he heard someone yelling that Scheuerman had done
something.
"At that point, I knew I was already too late," he said.
Scheuerman's body was discovered in a closet, blood streaming from his mouth.
Initially, Scheuerman's father said he trusted the Army would investigate his son's
death and take action.
"I did not want to believe that it was as bad as I thought it was, so I chose not to
make hasty judgments," Scheuerman said from his kitchen table, sitting beside his ex-wife,
whom he plans to remarry. "I chose to systematically try to get all the information that I
could and once I received all the information I could, my worst fears were realized."
Each document that arrived brought more pain.
When a copy of his son's suicide note appeared, Scheuerman broke down crying. In the
note, his son said he wanted to say goodbye, but his ability to contact the family was taken
away "like everything else." He said he'd brought dishonor on his family and his Army unit.
"I know you think I'm a coward for this but in the face of existing as I am now, I have
no other choice," Scheuerman wrote. "As the 1st Sgt said all I have to look forward to is a
butt-buddy in jail, not much of a future."
Chris Scheuerman wants to see a more thorough investigation, and some of his son's
leaders punished - perhaps even criminally charged - and the psychologist brought before a
medical peer review committee. "We will not see a statistical decrease in Army suicides
until the Army gets serious about holding people accountable when they do not do what they
are trained to do," he said.
Citing privacy, Maj. Nathan Banks, an Army public affairs officer, declined to discuss
the case.
Eventually, Jason Scheuerman's father sought the assistance of Rep. Bob Etheridge,
D-N.C., who spoke with Army Secretary Pete Geren on Oct. 1 and asked him to initiate an
investigation by the Inspector General's Office. Geren agreed.
The Scheuermans say they hope the investigation will bring about changes that will
prevent other suicides.
"The people that I trusted with the safety of my son killed him, and that hurts beyond
words because we are a family of soldiers," Scheuerman said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a new page describing the social aspects of American Fascism at
http://politicsusaweb.com/RootsOfFascism.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still the most concise explanation of how we are who we are:
"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress
of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her August claims, have been
born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing,
and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it
does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor
freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the
ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the
awful roar of its many waters."
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be
both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly
submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will
be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words
or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those
whom they oppress."
---Frederick Douglass
Source: Douglass, Frederick. [1857] (1985). "The Significance of
Emancipation in the West Indies." Speech, Canandaigua, New York, August 3,
1857; collected in pamphlet by author.
http://www.buildingequality.us/Quotes/Frederick_Douglass.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A reasonably just and well-ordered democratic society might be possible,
and . . . justice as fairness should have a special place among the political
conceptions in its political and social world. . . [M]any are prepared to accept the
conclusion that a just and well-ordered democratic society is not possible, and even
regard it as obvious. Isn't admitting it part of growing up, part of the inevitable
loss of innocence? But is this conclusion one we can so easily accept?
The answer we give to the question of whether a just democratic society is
possible and can be stable for the right reasons affects our background thoughts and
attitudes about the world as a whole. And it affects these thoughts and attitudes
before we come to actual politics, and limits or inspires how we take part in it. . .
If we take for granted as common knowledge that a just and well-ordered democratic
society is impossible, then the quality and tone of those attitudes will reflect that
knowledge. A cause of the fall of Wiemar's constitutional regime was that none of the
traditional elites of Germany supported its constitution or were willing to cooperate
to make it work. They no longer believed a decent liberal parliamentary regime was
possible. Its time had past.
The regime fell first to a series of authoritarian cabinet governments from 1930 to
1932. When these were increasingly weakened by their lack of popular support,
President Hindenburg was finally persuaded to turn to Hitler, who had such support and
whom conservatives thought they could control.
~ John Rawls "Political Liberalism" pg. lx
__________________________________________________________________
This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in
my efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights,
economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this
constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section
107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the
material in this post is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this post for purposes of your own that
go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
