{"id":31906,"date":"2012-09-05T23:03:59","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T03:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=31906"},"modified":"2012-09-05T23:03:59","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T03:03:59","slug":"the-8000-mile-sniper-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=31906","title":{"rendered":"The 8000-Mile Sniper Shot"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote this post and published it tonight over at the blog of the Marine Infantry Veterans Foundation<\/a>, a charity organization built by infantry Marines with the goal of taking care of our own. I’d really like more eyes on this post and more people to know about an issue that I’ve been personally touched by, and to learn of a couple of Marines who survived deployments to war, only to come home and take their own lives.<\/p>\n

When you leave the military, your mind is usually filled with a range of emotions. There\u2019s joy over your newfound freedom, sadness at leaving brothers behind, and anxiety over the unknown. In June 2010, when I picked up my discharge papers from the Marine Corps, I lived through it and felt them all.<\/p>\n

Now two years later, I am close to graduation from The University of Tampa, run asuccessful military satire website<\/a>, and am lucky to continue working with military veterans. It wasn\u2019t an easy road, and many times I felt alone and helpless.<\/p>\n

For a heartbreaking and rising number of veterans, those emotions can lead to a devastating end: suicide.<\/p>\n

Navy Cross recipient and former Corporal Jeremiah Workman, who dealt with his own emotional trauma and thoughts of suicide, refers to it as an enemy making an 8000-mile sniper shot.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened with Seth Smith, from Kansas City, Missouri. I first met Seth on a training exercise in Okinawa, Japan with 3rd Marine Division. As one of a small handful of infantry Marines in a unit full of different specialties, it was a lonesome time for me.<\/p>\n

After seeing Corporal Smith directing forklifts \u2014 with his flak jacket set up much like an infantryman \u2014 I approached him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you a grunt?,\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

He responded no, but after further questioning, it turns out that he was attached to my old unit, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, for a deployment to Iraq in 2009. Instead of being an electrician like he was trained, he was put into an infantry squad with Lima Company. He was grunt-enough to me.<\/p>\n

We soon became friends.<\/p>\n

About six months after I said goodbye and good luck to 28 year-old Corporal Seth Smith as I left the Marine Corps, he was honorably discharged and returned home. The following April, he was dead.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t give a warning, or leave a note. He was engaged and had a son named Carter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Please continue reading the whole piece here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote this post and published it tonight over at the blog of the Marine Infantry … The 8000-Mile Sniper Shot<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":624,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terror-war","category-war-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/624"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}