I’ll never forget when I returned from my first deployment. A whirlwind of emotions and images are seared into my brain from what was about a week in transit from Al Taqaddum Airbase, Iraq to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
All of the happy memories – the excited phone calls, plans for which restaurant or bar we were going to first, the families and friends mobbing us as we stepped off the bus in NC – they’re all overshadowed by one dark recollection etched in my mind forever.
The Marine sitting next to me on the bus as we arrived home at Camp Lejeune was on the phone with his wife. He was telling her how he had missed her. He was so excited to see her, to start building their life together again. It was a perfectly normal conversation in a sea of happy chatter on the busride. It should be just another pleasant memory, except for one thing.
After we were reunited with family and friends, I never saw that Marine again. He died of suicide before we returned from our post-deployment leave.
His phone conversation still haunts me. I’ve played it back over and over in my head. Maybe somewhere, somehow, I missed a warning sign? Maybe one of us should have known? Maybe we could have done something, anything to let him know he wasn’t alone?
I’m afraid I’ll never know. I’m left only to wonder about who he would be today. How would he have changed his community? What would his children look like? How can we even begin to understand the void his tragic loss left in the lives of his family and friends?
I wish I could say this was the last or only time I lost someone I served with to suicide. I wish I could say in the dozen or so years since then, we’ve done a much better job of protecting those who proudly and selflessly volunteered to protect us. Tragically, this is not the case.
Today, I want to challenge everyone reading this right now — help us save our brothers and sisters. Please, check in on the veterans in your life. Learn the warning signs of a mental health crisis. Listen to them. Let them know you care. Tell them they are still appreciated and never alone.
Not just on Veterans Day, but every day, our veterans still need our support.
If you or a veteran you know is in crisis, call 9-8-8 for free, confidential support, or text 8-3-8-2-5-5.

Editor’s note: This is a letter from Adam Reed, an 8-year Marine Corps Veteran, who produced a video Pubic Service Announcement for The Clarion’s website about resources available to help veterans struggling with mental health.