Two-star General grapples with loss of two sons in service, becomes advocate to help Soldiers, families
This couple had two sons and a daughter. Today they have a daughter. One son committed suicide after struggling with depression, and their other son was KIA, just a few months later — the grief and anguish that were felt by the parents of these two young men is beyond description. It is unfathomable. Yet, through the struggles of grief and pain this two-star general and his wife have continue to live out the love they have for their sons by reaching out and advocating for soldiers who need mental health support and services.
“More Soldiers were killed in Iraq and others died in car accidents and by suicide,” he said. “It occurred to us that maybe this was the reason we were meant to continue to serve. We personally knew the pain these families were feeling and we could genuinely connect in a way we never could have before. As we tried to comfort the broken hearts of the people God put in our path, an amazing phenomenon occurred. We received more healing in our spirits than we gave. Others seemed to help us more than we helped them.”
Read more below from http://www.army.mil/news/
Two-star general grapples with loss of two sons in service, becomes advocate to help Soldiers, families
Aug 3, 2009EXCERPT
By By Maureen RoseFORT KNOX, Ky. — In opening senior leadership training July 24, Maj. Gen. Mark Graham, the commander of Division West, 1st Army at Fort Carson, Colo., quoted Oswald Chambers, a 19th century Scottish theologian.
“We say there ought to be no sorrow but there is sorrow, and to survive we have to find ourselves in it. If we try to evade sorrow, refuse to lay our account with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts of life.”
Graham and his wife, Carol, know the largeness of that fact only too well. Of their three children, only daughter Melanie has survived. The Graham’s son, Jeffrey, was killed in action in Iraq in 2004 while his brother, Kevin, committed suicide just a few months earlier. Kevin was a senior ROTC student at the University of Kentucky and was studying to be an Army doctor. He had discontinued his depression medication for fear it would affect his future military career.
The grief of losing two sons – both in military service – drove Graham to the brink of retirement. He did not think he could continue serving the Army. The day he planned to turn in his official paperwork, Carol read a passage to him from “Streams in the Desert” by L.B. Cowan. It changed their lives. It read, in part:
“Yesterday you experienced a great sorrow and now your home seems empty. Your impulse is to give up amid your dashed hopes. Yet, you must defy that temptation for you are at the front lines of battle and the crisis is at hand. Faltering for even one moment would put God’s interest at risk. Other lives will be harmed by your hesitation and His work will suffer if you simply fold your hands. You must not linger at this point, even to indulge your grief.”
The Grahams took that devotion as a sign that there was still a mission for them and a purpose for remaining in the Army family. Although they continued to grieve, they learned to take one day at a time, and eventually they realized their mission more clearly.
“More Soldiers were killed in Iraq and others died in car accidents and by suicide,” he said. “It occurred to us that maybe this was the reason we were meant to continue to serve. We personally knew the pain these families were feeling and we could genuinely connect in a way we never could have before. As we tried to comfort the broken hearts of the people God put in our path, an amazing phenomenon occurred. We received more healing in our spirits than we gave. Others seemed to help us more than we helped them.”
Although still healing, the Grahams have become advocates for Soldiers who suffer with post traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and other mental health illnesses.
“From our personal tragedies, my wife Carol and our daughter Melanie and I have come to realize that in order to survive, we had to use our brokenness to reach out and openly share our story and try to give hope to others,” said Graham. “As an Army and as a nation, we must get in front of suicide, work to prevent it by action, not just figure it out after the fact.”
The pain in Graham’s voice lends validity to his call for Army leaders to find a way to help mentally ill Soldiers returning from deployments or facing subsequent deployments.
“I am here to tell you that we cannot be quiet any longer. We cannot take that hushed tone when speaking of suicide, and we cannot ignore the warning signs,” he said. “People are hurting. They need to be helped, not judged. My wife Carol and I missed the warning signs of our son’s depression and just could not see that his illness – if left untreated – was potentially as deadly as if he had had cancer or heart disease.”
