I am not fully qualified to speak to the topic of war. I have never been to war, never held another persons life in my hands, never labored over a mortally wounded friend, never taken the life of my enemy, so I can understand how most folks might question my credentials on this subject and others might say "you know nothing at all of war". I would not argue with either.

 I speak tonight of my experiences and my experiences alone. In my opinion that should be sufficient to scare most folks, and if others who have been closer to the subject, or paid a higher price than I were to speak it should bring tears to any normal person's eyes.

 We hear the term "the cost of war" tossed around often. Most people when they use this term are referring to one of two things. They refer either to the cost in monetary terms, or the cost in human lives, and sometimes both. But there is a deeper cost to war, one which I hope to at least make you familiar with and perhaps cause you to pause and consider.

 Across the years it has been my honor to support many of the troops fighting in this war, and to become friends through social media with a plethora of different folks, all tied to the wars and to our troops. I count amongst those friends, to name a few types, Gold Star mothers and fathers, those who have lost a child in war, Gold Star wives, Gold Star children, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles. I count amongst them also mothers who have a child incarcerated in prison, and wives whose husbands are incarcerated. Standing along side those are the Wounded, and their families, wives, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. And last but by no means least are those who lost a loved one to tragedy, be it suicide, drug overdoes, and or alcohol related deaths, among that circle I also know, wives, and mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. All of these people are part of the cost of war.

 Along side the fallen, the wounded, the lost ones are several more persons. The ruined marriages, relationships that just could not stand the test of multiple deployments. There are the hurt and shattered lives that are a result of these ruined marriages. Also there are the many children trying to do well in school while a parent stands in harms way, and beside them, the single parent, trying to hold it all together while their mate is deployed and at war.

 And there are the regular people, those waiting on someone they love, those trying to live a normal life and take care of normal business all the while worrying and praying for a loved one in harms way. In light of previous examples this seems rather easy, but even this takes a toil.

 All these things are part of the cost of war. The price we have paid, the price we are paying, and the price we will pay.

 I can speak personally regarding the toil taken upon a person when a child is deployed in harms way. I sent a son to war twice. Neither time was easy. While the child is deployed you become attached to your phone, it never leaves your side, you obsess over charging it and always ensuring it is ready, should you receive a call. You answer it no matter where you are, or what you are doing. You grab it and say HELLO in the middle of a church service, while headed for the door, you leave the shower covered in soap and shampoo in order to grab the ringing phone. You take it to the toilet with you. You run out of important meetings at work, meetings that you are holding..in order to answer that phone.

 You breathe a little when it's your kid on the other side, hearing his voice brings such relief. You want to cry, you want to grill him over things, to know if he is really okay, but you swallow all that, and try and stay calm and you just listen and support him. Your heart breaks into pieces when he informs you that he lost a brother, or that someone was wounded, but you stay strong for him, because you do not want to make this any harder for him. You want to keep him on that phone forever...but time is short and he is always so very tired.

 If you are like me, you stay as informed as you can on how things are going over there. On the days when you see that someone died the night before, there was a bombing, or there was a firefight that made the news, its in the area where he is...your heart stops, you fight against the fear, the fear that wants to paralyze you. You pray, sometimes on your face on the floor....but how does one pray in such a time? You pray Lord please keep him safe! Knowing that even as you say those words...someone is not safe...someone is dead. Is it your son or anothers?
  

 A day or so later the name is released, you breathe a sigh of relief, your heart rejoices, no one knocked on your door, no one called you, he is okay! And then the shattering takes place as you realize that somewhere, someplace, there is someone just like you, someone who prayed, someone who was so afraid........and someone knocked on her door.

 The entire deployment goes round and round, you replay these scenes over and over again. One day you receive a call.......he has been wounded.....it is like a punch in the stomach, your legs shake and will not support your weight, the time between that first sentence and the next which describes his wounds.....is forever. For me, I was one of the lucky ones, the wounds were a concussion and a jacked up back and hip, nothing major and my son was back in action within a week or so of the call.....but a lot of folks do not get a call like that....they get the call of lost limbs, of a loved one hanging to life by a thread. Oh Lord I know not how they endured these things for I never want to get any closer to that than I did.

 I have followed the accounts of friends who rushed to their son's sides. Who gave up everything to sit by their bed, to wrestle with Doctors and Nurses and to fight for them while they were unable to. I have followed their sons  as they climb from the very edge of death to recovery, and followed others who climbed and then died for no good reason. Followed others who fought with every bit of their will only to succumb to their wounds.

 I have followed parents, shared prayers with them, prayed for their sons, and those sons fell. I have followed these parents as they walk this life without their child.

 I know mothers who found their children dead, dead by their own hand, haunted by the demons of PTSD. Can you imagine anything more horrible? I have known about PTSD for some time and have always supported those who battle it, but in truth, in retrospect, I find that all that I thought that I knew about it was really only the tip of the iceberg.

 Our family has moved on from war, and from the military, we now join the ranks of the veterans and the veteran families. We battle the VA now, we battle PTSD and TBI and do our best to rescue our loved ones from the darkness that ever threatens to consume them. I thought I had seen the worst of things, experienced the worst of things, I thought there was nothing worse than sitting here, protected, surrounded by all the luxuries this American life has to offer, while my beloved child fought in a far away land......now I am not so sure.

 Now that I have come face to face with PTSD and all it's demons, I realize that I am in the battle of my life right now, a battle that I have personally seen good people, people who loved with all their hearts and souls, people who prayed, people who did all that they could humanly do.....lose. They buried their loved one. It is a frightening truth that I struggle with each and every day.

 I will end this short introduction into the cost of war with good news. The fight is winnable. Never give up on them, keep pushing forward, keep loving them, keep praying for them, keep doing all that you can to get them into the various programs out there that can assist them in the fight. We can win this fight. And should, God forbid, we be one of those who fail, let it be said that we gave it everything we had, that we put every ounce of our being into the fight.

 To all of you who have paid your part of the cost of war, be you the warrior who went, the loved one who waited, be you one who lost someone special, or walked with them through the Wounded Warrior journey, be you one who suffers from PTSD or TBI, or someone fighting along side...whatever part of the price you have paid, we thank you, and we pray for you each and every day. You are a special bunch of people, more resilient than most will ever know, and you, more than anyone else, make me proud. May God ever bless and keep you.

 To all of you who have not had to pay, I ask you to think upon the things I have written and to do all that you can to assist this wonderful group of people who have paid their share and yours also. Stand along side of them. Try to understand them. We need you in this fight, we need you to care, we need you to help. We have a generation who has fought for over ten years, and all those connected to them, they all bear scars, they all have wounds. Stand with us, and may God ever keep you from the sorrows felt in paying the cost of war.

 Last but not least, I pray, with all my heart and soul, that our nation will learn, and understand the true price being paid for the wars we are fighting. I pray that our elected officials and our citizens will consider the cost carefully before sending our sons and daughters to war. There are things worth fighting for, there are things worth dieing for, there are situations where the cost, in lives, in wounds, in shattered hearts and souls is worth paying. Should our nation be in danger, should there be risk of our citizens here being harmed or killed, or our freedoms be at risk, then fight we must, but I hope and I pray we will always weigh the choice carefully. The cost is so very much higher than most people ever know.

I am glad to see that The Blaze has picked this story up....hopefully other news networks will follow. Daniel took his life on June 10th, the same day that my niece's husband Allen took his. This is happening far too often. Our active duty troops and our veterans are not getting the help they need, the help they earned, the help they deserve, but are instead being discarded, and most Americans do not even know that we have a near epidemic of military suicides going on.
Daniel Somers served his time in hell, right here on earth, he did so on our behalf, and since his family has saw fit to release his last words....it is good and right that everyone take a moment and read them. A man's last words ought to be heard. It is too late for Daniel, it is too late for Allen, it is too late for Trevor and for the countless others who take their own lives...but if we listen, if we pay attention, perhaps we it will not be too late for someone.

These are his words:

I am sorry that it has come to this.

The fact is, for as long as I can remember my motivation for getting up every day has been so that you would not have to bury me. As things have continued to get worse, it has become clear that this alone is not a sufficient reason to carry on. The fact is, I am not getting better, I am not going to get better, and I will most certainly deteriorate further as time goes on. From a logical standpoint, it is better to simply end things quickly and let any repercussions from that play out in the short term than to drag things out into the long term.

You will perhaps be sad for a time, but over time you will forget and begin to carry on. Far better that than to inflict my growing misery upon you for years and decades to come, dragging you down with me. It is because I love you that I can not do this to you. You will come to see that it is a far better thing as one day after another passes during which you do not have to worry about me or even give me a second thought. You will find that your world is better without me in it.

I really have been trying to hang on, for more than a decade now. Each day has been a testament to the extent to which I cared, suffering unspeakable horror as quietly as possible so that you could feel as though I was still here for you. In truth, I was nothing more than a prop, filling space so that my absence would not be noted. In truth, I have already been absent for a long, long time.

My body has become nothing but a cage, a source of pain and constant problems. The illness I have has caused me pain that not even the strongest medicines could dull, and there is no cure. All day, every day a screaming agony in every nerve ending in my body. It is nothing short of torture. My mind is a wasteland, filled with visions of incredible horror, unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety, even with all of the medications the doctors dare give. Simple things that everyone else takes for granted are nearly impossible for me. I can not laugh or cry. I can barely leave the house. I derive no pleasure from any activity. Everything simply comes down to passing time until I can sleep again. Now, to sleep forever seems to be the most merciful thing.

You must not blame yourself. The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity. Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.

To force me to do these things and then participate in the ensuing coverup is more than any government has the right to demand. Then, the same government has turned around and abandoned me. They offer no help, and actively block the pursuit of gaining outside help via their corrupt agents at the DEA. Any blame rests with them.

Beyond that, there are the host of physical illnesses that have struck me down again and again, for which they also offer no help. There might be some progress by now if they had not spent nearly twenty years denying the illness that I and so many others were exposed to. Further complicating matters is the repeated and severe brain injuries to which I was subjected, which they also seem to be expending no effort into understanding. What is known is that each of these should have been cause enough for immediate medical attention, which was not rendered.

Lastly, the DEA enters the picture again as they have now managed to create such a culture of fear in the medical community that doctors are too scared to even take the necessary steps to control the symptoms. All under the guise of a completely manufactured “overprescribing epidemic,” which stands in stark relief to all of the legitimate research, which shows the opposite to be true. Perhaps, with the right medication at the right doses, I could have bought a couple of decent years, but even that is too much to ask from a regime built upon the idea that suffering is noble and relief is just for the weak.

However, when the challenges facing a person are already so great that all but the weakest would give up, these extra factors are enough to push a person over the edge.

Is it any wonder then that the latest figures show 22 veterans killing themselves each day? That is more veterans than children killed at Sandy Hook, every single day. Where are the huge policy initiatives? Why isn’t the president standing with those families at the state of the union? Perhaps because we were not killed by a single lunatic, but rather by his own system of dehumanization, neglect, and indifference.

It leaves us to where all we have to look forward to is constant pain, misery, poverty, and dishonor. I assure you that, when the numbers do finally drop, it will merely be because those who were pushed the farthest are all already dead.

And for what? Bush’s religious lunacy? Cheney’s ever growing fortune and that of his corporate friends? Is this what we destroy lives for

Since then, I have tried everything to fill the void. I tried to move into a position of greater power and influence to try and right some of the wrongs. I deployed again, where I put a huge emphasis on saving lives. The fact of the matter, though, is that any new lives saved do not replace those who were murdered. It is an exercise in futility.

Then, I pursued replacing destruction with creation. For a time this provided a distraction, but it could not last. The fact is that any kind of ordinary life is an insult to those who died at my hand. How can I possibly go around like everyone else while the widows and orphans I created continue to struggle? If they could see me sitting here in suburbia, in my comfortable home working on some music project they would be outraged, and rightfully so.

I thought perhaps I could make some headway with this film project, maybe even directly appealing to those I had wronged and exposing a greater truth, but that is also now being taken away from me. I fear that, just as with everything else that requires the involvement of people who can not understand by virtue of never having been there, it is going to fall apart as careers get in the way.

The last thought that has occurred to me is one of some kind of final mission. It is true that I have found that I am capable of finding some kind of reprieve by doing things that are worthwhile on the scale of life and death. While it is a nice thought to consider doing some good with my skills, experience, and killer instinct, the truth is that it isn’t realistic. First, there are the logistics of financing and equipping my own operation, then there is the near certainty of a grisly death, international incidents, and being branded a terrorist in the media that would follow. What is really stopping me, though, is that I simply am too sick to be effective in the field anymore. That, too, has been taken from me.

Thus, I am left with basically nothing. Too trapped in a war to be at peace, too damaged to be at war. Abandoned by those who would take the easy route, and a liability to those who stick it out—and thus deserve better. So you see, not only am I better off dead, but the world is better without me in it

This is what brought me to my actual final mission. Not suicide, but a mercy killing. I know how to kill, and I know how to do it so that there is no pain whatsoever. It was quick, and I did not suffer. And above all, now I am free. I feel no more pain. I have no more nightmares or flashbacks or hallucinations. I am no longer constantly depressed or afraid or worried

I am free.

I ask that you be happy for me for that. It is perhaps the best break I could have hoped for. Please accept this and be glad for me.

Daniel Somers

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/25/heartbreaking-suicide-note-from-30-year-old-iraq-veteran-to-his-family-i-am-free/

Rest in peace Daniel Somers.....rest in peace Allen Young.....

Daniel Somers

Charles Allen Young