On Aug. 12, soldiers, veterans and
military family members joined together in a historic speak out near
the gates of Ft. Lewis base to hold the Army accountable in the of
suicides of Sgt. Derrick Kirkland, an infantryman and Jared Hagemann, Army Ranger, both based out of Ft. Lewis. The event packed Coffee
Strong, an anti-war coffee shop and organizing center, with a
standing-room only crowd of almost 80 people. The speak out was
organized by members of March Forward!, an organization of active
duty service members and veterans.
Kirkland was on his second combat tour
in Iraq when he was sent home for mental health reasons. Sgt.
Kirkland attempted suicide three times, then was rated a “low risk
for suicide” by Army mental health doctors, mocked and ridiculed by
his chain of command, given no treatment but prescription
medications, then assigned to a room by himself (a violation of Army
regulations for soldiers at risk of suicide.). Kirkland killed
himself shortly thereafter. He left behind a wife, baby daughter, and
a grieving family.
March Forward! leader Michael Prysner,
an Iraq war veteran, set the tone in his opening statement. “It is
our assertion here tonight, that Sgt. Kirkland did not kill himself,
that he was killed by the Army. He was killed by the Army’s
criminally inadequate mental health care services, and by the chain
of command…Drastic change in needed. And we must be the vehicle for
that change to happen.”
Ryan Endicott, a marine veteran of the
Iraq war and March Forward! organizer, put the mental health crisis
in context: “There is now an epidemic of suicides in the military.
For the last two years, more soldiers have died from suicide than
from combat. This is a staggering number. This is a major crisis.
Something is very wrong… And if this is such a crisis for U.S.
troops, imagine the rate of post traumatic stress disorder among the
people of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Another member of Kirkland’s unit was
Joseph Kroniger. “I think the chain of command for rear detachment
should be held accountable for negligent homicide. I was there the
day Kirkland came back from the hospital. The way he was treated was
totally disrespectful. He was mocked, humiliated, and told that he
was a coward. I was in the chapel after he killed himself, and the
people behind me were in the chain of command. They were calling him
names, after he killed himself, and telling us that he ‘wasted
their weekend.’”
Mary Corkhill-Kirkland, the mother of
Kirkland, after discovering March Forward! and the justice for
Kirkland campaign online, traveled from her home in Indiana to
participate in the speak out. “Thank you all for honoring my son by
being here. It really, really means a lot to me to know that you guys
care.” She went on to describe the long list of deceptions and
evasions that have characterized her dealings with the Army over her
son’s death, including claims that he died in combat and that the
grieving family did not wish to speak with the media.
One of the most gripping statements
came from Ashley Joppa-Hagemann, the young widow of Staff Sergeant
Jared Hagemann, who committed suicide in June after being given
orders for his ninth deployment.
“By June of this year, he finally had
enough. He told me, ‘I’m not going, no matter what, I’m not
going.’ Next thing I know, they found him on a training area with a
self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head. Knowing my husband,
knowing how much he loved his children. To find him hidden, in the
bushes, because he had nowhere else to go. People mocked him. They
judged him. They told him to ‘man up. Take a sleeping pill. You’re
fine. It’s all in your head.’ No, it wasn’t… The only thing he
had control of was how he ended his own life. For that I blame his
chain of command.”
Staff Sgt. Kevin Baker was in the
barracks the day Kirkland lost his life and was one of the members of
the unit who immediately began organizing and speaking out. As he
described, when Kirkland returned from deployment due to his suicide
attempts, “he was greeted not with ‘how can we help you?’ which
would be the correct response coming from leaders within the
military, but instead he was greeted with words like ‘coward,
p—y, and liar…’ So he was placed in a room by himself where he
hanged himself in a closet. Now, the same chain of command that
mocked him when he was alive, mocked him in death.” Baker is now
out of the military and has become a leading member of March Forward!
Danny Birmingham, an active duty
infantryman explained why, after serving his first deployment to
Iraq, he had since become a conscientious objector: “I joined the
military because I didn’t have any options back home. When I went
to Iraq, seeing the way that they live, seeing the way they’re
treated by us, if you have any kind of morals at all, you can see
that it’s wrong… I lost all interest in even being in the
military and when I came home, it started to bother me even when
people thanked me for my service.” Birmingham is currently awaiting
a final decision on his application for CO status.
Mike Prysner summed the evening up: “It
is the united action of active duty service members, of veterans, of
military families and their supporters that will be the vehicle that
creates the change that we’re demanding here tonight.”
