We who were living are now dying (20 veterans a day)

He who was now living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
-T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" (epic poem about personal and social desolation in the postmodern world)

Around 20 veterans a day commit suicide. It's a statistic that many of us are familiar with.
So what are you doing about it?
I get it. Suicide is a very hard subject to talk about.
Talking about suicide forces us to acknowledge our own mortality, and maybe take a look inside our own hearts and see that we are not as happy as our social media profile tries to make us look.
It might force us to look closer at the people to our left and right and ask, "what are these people struggling with that they might not be letting out?"

So your friend came back from the war, he has a family and kids, he is smiling in all the pictures you see of him: he is fine, right? Nothing to worry about, you can be happy for him.
Military training and the very experience of combat makes combat veterans experts in "compartmentalization."
A warrior in combat whose head is in another place grieving about the girlfriend who just dumped him is a liability to everyone around him.
There is no place for weakness in combat. You must be the strength of the warrior fighting beside you.
There is no place for grief in combat. Everyone is aware that they are on borrowed time and you respond with anger, violence, and a grim humor.
Do you know what? It works. You find yourself surrounded by 50 individuals close as brothers who give you that strength you need to keep fighting and keep that softer side locked away inside.

But every military service comes to an end. That band of brothers becomes a couple phone calls a year, and vague pictures floating around social media.
Then you start getting the news: Sergeant so and so, husband and father just killed himself. No one saw it coming. He will be missed.
And again, and again, and again.
No one sees it coming, because "compartmentalization" never quits for the average combat veteran.

But there is an 800 pound gorilla trying to smash the door down and it's only a matter of time.
There is grief that needs to be acknowledged, loss that needs to be memorialized, emotional wounds that they may not even be aware of that are slowly bleeding out.
It's not the fault of their families: they have no idea what these individuals went through and they most likely are not letting anyone know.
It's not the veteran's fault: he could be floating in a sea of despair so foreign that he can't tell up from down anymore.

It's not a hopeless situation.
Just as in combat you have a "fire team" "battle buddies" and a chain of command of ascending responsibility, the same needs to apply when military service ends.

YOU combat veteran reading this: your family can't relate to your experiences any more than you can relate to what goes through a Hollywood socialite's head.
But guess who can: other combat veterans. Go to your local VFW. Get associated with your local Vet Center.
Look up every veteran that you served with and do your best to stay in regular contact with them.

Join THIS discord group of Steemit veterans https://discord.gg/CatxrV

If you are a veteran feeling suicidal, this a 24/7 hotline you can call. 1-800-273-8255
Yes, I have called them before.
If you are a woman and need a woman's support there is a hotline especially for you. 1-855-829-6636

For those who are not combat veterans but are concerned and want to help: share this information.
Hold their hand if needed and walk into the vet center with them; go to that vet support meeting with them.
If you know a military veteran, be their friend. I'm not going to say combat veteran because there are many coming out of military service with all different types of emotional scars and disorientation that may not be stemming from combat deployment.

Be a good caring person. You ARE your brother's keeper.
Millennials are supposed to be the most depressed generation, and I think that it is because with the advent of social media and shallow methods of acting like you care (upvotes and likes and emojis) we are forgetting how to really care about others.
Here is some advice: if you are not feeling vulnerable or unsure when you are reaching out to support someone, then you are probably not reaching out far enough.
So go, be vulnerable, help a little more than you are comfortable with. I promise you that it will be worth it.

If you want to read more from someone who is dedicated to spreading awareness about depression and what can be done to reach out to those suffering from it, then please follow this most excellent blogger (and veteran) @socent.

For those who were attracted to my artwork, the subject matter is loosely based on the Twin Buttes in Utah: massive rock spires towering over flat desert.
The desert environment matches a feeling of depression and isolation.
My message when I created this piece was that if a veteran suicide was as giant and monumental as these twin buttes then the whole world would be concerned and talking about.
But instead it is a quiet statistic, a little byline deep in your news feed.
We have the power to make this a problem that everyone is concerned about it.

This is a watercolor on paper, worked over with pen, markers, and pencil.