2

Suicides have skyrocketed in the army, so we had to go to another suicide prevention class. This time it was led by a Sergeant who in the states was a counselor for violent juvenile males.
He talked at length about the different institutions he’d worked at. He had a degree in psychology and was a semester away from his Master’s.
He began by explaining that some suicidals are giving a cry for help, others are experiencing temporary devastation, and finally the third kind -- the most difficult to help -- actually do feel that ending their lives is the most appropriate action -- they have an actual genuine intent to kill themselves.
He told of the three red flags -- a persistent feeling of worthlessness, a feeling that things would always be this way (hopelessness), and the feeling that all resources had been exhausted (helplessness).
I sat in the back of the class feeling the irony of him describing me so matter-of-factly. I noticed the way he explained it to his students, like it was incredulous that someone could think or feel that way.
Still I was impressed by him; he seemed like a cool and genuine guy. He seemed very knowledgeable, he seemed to want some of us to stay late so he could continue teaching.
_It’s what I love to do,_ he said.
A few guys did get with him after the class, so that he seemed to have a little fan club around him as the rest filed out.
I didn’t stay late but I did go back with a vague plan to feel him out, as far as whether he could be of any help to me, especially concerning the nightmares. Outside the door of the classroom-tent I tried to listen and make out whether there was another class going on inside. Suddenly the door opened and SGT Sum___, the instructor, hurried out, a projector under one arm and a laptop and binder under the other. _Oh, excuse me, _ he said. _Oh, hello, Sergeant,_ I said, and he hurried off.
I went back to mine and K___’s room -- weirdly empty now without any signs of K__’s recent presence -- and thought about how ridiculous this was, but I knew I was getting older and couldn’t pass on the opportunity of such a resource if SGT Sum___ really did turn out to be one.
So I went back, this time to his office-tent. He was on the phone in the front, in a kind of make-shift lobby. A pretty Specialist smiled and asked me what I needed and I said I was just waiting for the Sergeant.
When he got off the phone he turned to me and cheerily said hello, and asked what was up. Before I could answer he said, _Before you say anything, I mean if you’re fishing this out, I need to know if this is an incident or something else, either way I’m going to need you to fill out some paper work. So which is it?_
_Um .. _ I said, _I don’t know what any of that means. I just came to ask a question._
Since we weren’t in his office but still in the lobby area, the pretty SPC kept walking by, which made things awkward.
_I was just in your class,_ I said, _And you talked about the field you’re in. I’m kind of going into that too and was wondering if you’d come across any good book for males from extreme child abuse._
_Um .. Books .. _ he said, still cheery, rubbing his arm, seeming to think out loud. _Books on sexual abuse._
_Well, I don’t know about sexual abuse,_ I said, seeing the pretty SPC in my peripheral, looking through papers not five feet away.
_Extreme child abuse .. Well there’s some books that have come out recently about teenagers who have PTSD,_ he said suddenly excited, as if he found it fascinating, _Yeah, they used to think that only soldiers could get PTSD, but now they’ve found that kids who have been beaten and abused so badly they when they become teenagers they’re already suffering PTSD --_
_Yeah, I know about all that already,_ I said, annoyed.
_Maybe you could google it,_ he said.
_I have, those books couldn’t possibly be helpful to anybody. I thought in your experience you might have come across one that was real, like a gem._
Was this guy dense? I thought to myself.
_Books .. No I can’t think of any books._
_That’s okay. No problem. Just wanted to check,_ I said, and I started to go.
_But now that you’ve got me thinking about it, let me look into it, maybe I can still get an answer for you._
I was politely relieved and said okay, but didn’t feel hopeful about it and didn’t plan on coming back.

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