There was no gun salute, no fallen soldier display of boots, rifle and helmet -- the traditional Army honors for a lost comrade. When a memorial service was held in the Fort Richardson chapel for Schmachtenberger last August, there was only a photograph of the soldier in uniform, propped on an easel.
Schmachtenberger was a 30-year-old paratrooper from Constantinople, Ohio. He enlisted in 1999 and served three deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. He went over twice with Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne after 9/11. He was an artilleryman with Fort Richardson's 4-25th Brigade Combat Team when it went to Iraq in 2006 on its surge-extended 14-month mission.
He was not killed in battle. He died alone July 29 on the garage floor of his East Anchorage duplex apartment. He was found with his head resting on a folded blanket, a half-consumed alcohol bottle nearby and his pickup idling beside him. When the police arrived, the carbon monoxide level was so deadly they feared for the people in the next-door unit until they learned it was rented by another soldier, then in Afghanistan.
Schmachtenberger was one of three Fort Richardson soldiers to kill themselves in 2009, the local manifestation of a growing epidemic of suicides among America's battle-stressed military.
But the failure of the commanders of his own artillery battalion to give him final military honors may have been symptomatic of another aspect of the epidemic: the stigma put on soldiers who show signs of mental stress.
"It sends the wrong message," Maj. Gen. William Troy, the commander of the Army in Alaska, said in a recent interview.
"When you do a memorial service in a different way (for a suicide victim), I think that you're adding to the stigmatization of a soldier who has a behavioral health problem. You don't mean to, but what you're doing is, you're making it look like it's his fault," Troy said. "We should be memorializing his service to the nation, his service in combat. He's a volunteer, a member of a free nation who came and joined our ranks to defend this country and that's what we should be memorializing, not passing judgment on the manner of his death."
MILITARY CULTURE
Over the past year, the Army's top leaders have been increasingly emphasizing that the stigma must end if soldiers are to believe they can seek mental health therapy without fearing it will ruin their Army careers or bring personal ridicule. Pushing that message down through the ranks to battalion, company, platoon and squad leaders remains one of their big challenges, they say.
Changing that aspect of military culture is especially critical in Alaska now. The 4,500-troop 1-25th Stryker brigade returned late last summer from Iraq to Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks. It has just begun to rebuild for its next assignment.
The 3,500 paratroopers of the 4-25th airborne brigade are on the way home to Fort Richardson this month after a year in a dangerous corner of Afghanistan. Thousands of additional soldiers, reservists and members of the National Guard in Alaska are regularly rotating through the two theaters.
And it's not just a problem facing active-duty personnel. The problems often persist when soldiers return to civilian life. Alaska has the highest percentage of veterans in its population of any state.
The Army once had a lower suicide rate than the civilian population, adjusted for age and gender. But the rate has been climbing steadily since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and is now higher than among civilians. The rates are climbing in the three other military services as well.
Last month, the Army reported that 160 soldiers killed themselves in 2009, up from 140 the previous year.
Fort Rich reported no suicides from 2003 to 2007. There was one reported case in 2008 and three in 2009.
But there might have been more. The body of a soldier just back from Iraq in July 2008 was found on the roof of a Ship Creek warehouse below the A Street-C Street Bridge. With neither witnesses nor note, Anchorage police couldn't determine whether he jumped or fell. He was not listed among the suicides.
Troy assumed his command at Fort Rich on Sept. 11, about a month after Schmachtenberger's memorial. Before his arrival, battalion or brigade commanders in Alaska decided how to conduct a final service.
"It's not up to them anymore," Troy said. The case that changed the rules involved a Stryker brigade soldier in Fort Wainwright who died in his barracks room Sept. 2, four days after returning from Iraq. The soldier's death was still under investigation by the military at the time; suicide was a possibility, though it has since been ruled an accident.
"It was one of the first questions I was asked when I was here -- did I want memorials done in a different way for suicides? I said absolutely not," Troy said.
AVOIDING THE 'SIXTH FLOOR'
Pvt. Tim Gaestel was a new soldier when he arrived at the 82nd Airborne's headquarters at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 2002. Schmachtenberger, then a specialist, a few ranks above private, befriended him.
"He was the ideal person to meet because he didn't mess around -- he told you what the Army was going to be like for a private," Gaestel said in a telephone interview last fall from his home in Austin, Texas, where he is now out of the service and attending college.
"He was the biggest class clown, always making jokes, but when it was time to be serious, he was there," Gaestel said.
Gaestel deployed twice with Schmachtenberger in C Battery of the 1st Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment. During their tour in Iraq, the brother of one of their buddies committed suicide. While their friend was gone for the funeral, he and Schmachtenberger sat out on the dunes, talking about suicide.
"It was never an option for him," Gaestel said. "It was always like, 'Man, I feel bad for Jamie, but still, I would never ever kill myself -- I could never do that.'"
Gaestel left the Army after the second deployment, but Schmachtenberger stayed on, following his dream of a career as a soldier, Gaestel said. The two were part of a circle of active duty soldiers and vets who stayed in touch by e-mails and text messages. Schmachtenberger went to Iraq again with his new Fort Rich battalion from October 2006 to December 2007.
Gaestel was surprised to learn Schmachtenberger didn't deploy for a fourth time when his Fort Rich unit, the 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, went to Afghanistan in February 2009. Schmachtenberger stayed behind in the battalion's rear detachment.
"No matter what, Tony would want to go. That's how he was," Gaestel said.
Schmachtenberger's mother, Robin Scalero of Alliance, Ohio, said Schmachtenberger indeed wanted to go, but had broken his pelvis and couldn't function as a paratrooper.
Still, Schmachtenberger seemed OK, she said in a telephone interview. When his half-brother -- Scalero's youngest son -- attempted suicide in January after getting out of the Army, Schmachtenberger's reaction was similar to what Gaestel saw in the dunes.
"Tony jumped all over him, told him how immature it was, and that he can better himself," Scalero said.
"And then Anthony does this in July."
Schmachtenberger attempted suicide in his truck several weeks before he succeeded, Scalero said. She wonders why he wasn't hospitalized or put on suicide watch.
Some of their mutual friends think problems he was having with his second wife had caused him stress, Gaestel said, but that doesn't explain everything.
"He's previously been divorced, and I watched that relationship crumble, and the whole time Tony had his head up," Gaestel said.
Gaestel has been counseling vets at school, and has seen some of this before.
"When you deal with death like a soldier does, then taking your own life, it doesn't feel the same way," Gaestel said. "That's the only thing I can think of, that Tony experienced some really bad stuff and then was thrown some bad stuff."
It will be a mammoth task for the Army to convince career soldiers that it's OK to admit to suffering from stress and accept therapy or counseling, Gaestel said.
"You're supposed to be a man. Yeah, war is hell, but get over it," Gaestel said. "There's no way that you could stay in the military, become a career soldier, and ever go and say, 'I have problems.' As much as they claim you wouldn't, you would be shunned from your unit. Anytime you'd go to a board (for a promotion) there'd be four first sergeants that would all know what happened.
"When I first got to the 82nd Airborne, it was just common knowledge that if somebody went crazy, they go to the sixth floor of the hospital there. For the rest of the time I was in the Army, anybody who was feeling depressed, they were like, 'Watch out, you might end up on the sixth floor.' It was a very negative connotation with seeking any mental health treatment or anything like that."
NEW PROGRAM AT FORT RICH
Maj. Gen. Troy, the Alaska commander, acknowledges that it's not enough to tell soldiers they should seek counseling when they need it. They need to see that it has no negative impact on their careers, he said.
"We are trying to convince people in the military, in the Army, that it is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness, when you care enough about yourself, your family and your buddies to see that you got a problem that you need help with, then go seek that help," he said. "There's not a contradiction between being mentally tough on the battlefield and realizing you've been through a tremendously traumatic experience that you may need help with."
Troy cited the example of a four-star general, Carter Ham, who went public in 2009 with the depression and post-traumatic stress he suffered four years earlier from a difficult deployment in Mosul, Iraq. He's now commander of U.S. forces in Europe.
In a visit to Fort Rich in December, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army's vice chief of staff, told Troy and his brigade commanders that they've got to "decrease this stigma," Troy said.
The soldiers returning to Fort Rich this month from Afghanistan will be the first from a brigade-size unit to test a new mental health program designed to do just that. The Virtual Behavioral Health Pilot Program will screen every 4-25th soldier from the commander, Col. Michael Howard, and his sergeant major down to each private. First they'll describe their experiences in a questionnaire, including any traumatic brain injury they might have suffered, then enter a booth for a private video conference with a mental health professional. The on-line professional can make an immediate referral, including appointment, with a local counselor or therapist, Troy said.
The program showed promise when it was tested on a unit of about 700 soldiers in Hawaii, and Army officials are anxious to try it with a full brigade, Troy said.
Officials believe there are enough mental health professional in Anchorage to cope with the influx. Health-care companies with military contracts have been building mailing lists from the license files of Alaska therapists, sending out job offers for work with soldiers and their families.
Brenda Moore, chairwoman of the Alaska Suicide Prevention Council, said she's concerned about Alaska's rural areas, where veterans, national guardsmen and reservists live but where there are few mental health providers.
"Our suicide rate, especially among our Native male population, is five times the national rate, which is already a problem. Add to that the kinds of things that some have now experienced on the battlefield, and that adds more to the problem," she said. "We know that this is going to add a whole other level of need out there, and how to meet it is the million dollar question. We know that we have workforce issues, we know we have funding issues."
As a member of the Senate's Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees, U.S. Sen. Mark Begich said the Army has been making progress, but added: "We've got to do more here."
"The mental stress is enormous now," Begich, D-Alaska, said in a telephone interview. "We're just seeing the beginnings of a prolonged engagement, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the results that will be paid for, for many, many, many years."
The connection between traumatic brain injury and suicide became quite personal for Begich as a result of a subcommittee hearing he attended on April 29 on post-traumatic stress disorder. Among the witnesses were retired Army Lt. Col. Raymond Rivas and his wife, Colleen. Rivas suffered multiple concussions in Iraq and was having a serious time coping.
Begich said Rivas looked physically fit but had trouble speaking. His wife explained how she had given up her life to care for him.
"As I sat there, her testimony was riveting about her struggles supporting her soldier," Begich said.
Two and half months later, Rivas killed himself.
"We cannot just assume we are doing a good job -- we have to excel in this," Begich said.
MISDIAGNOSED WITH ADD
Spec. Steven Griffis sought help at Fort Richardson after he and his wife Lacy, also a soldier, returned from a 10-month deployment to Iraq July 4, 2007. They were in C Company of the 864th Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy).
Steven Griffis, then 21, from West Palm Beach, Fla., operated a HEMTT -- a huge armored tow truck used to recover American Humvees and other vehicles wrecked in roadside bombs to keep them out of the hands of insurgents. Lacy Griffis, then 22, was the quartermaster who supplied the motor pools.
Lacy Griffis said her husband's job required him to go on convoys about every other day they were in Iraq. He was shot at and he shot back. Though he wasn't injured, he would have to clean up the bloody aftermath of a bomb attack on an American vehicle, she said.
"It affects you," said his father, Steven Griffis Sr., a carpenter from Florida. "When he got back to Alaska, he was asking for some help, and the command was just kind of pacifying him."
Lacy Griffis said she thinks the Army medical personnel mistook a bipolar condition for attention deficit disorder and prescribed medication that made him worse. Her husband's mother died from complications associated with a bipolar disorder, she said.
Her company, with about 145 soldiers, seven of them female, had its share of woes, she said. There was Pvt. 1st Class Edward Byrnes, 36, from Limerick, Ireland, the soldier who jumped or fell from a bridge on First Avenue July 11, 2008. Spec. Blake Bronaugh, 22, from Wichita Falls, Tex., died in his barracks room that Thanksgiving Day. Several other soldiers attempted suicide but were rescued, Lacy Griffis said.
Around January 2009, the Griffis were living off-base in an apartment in Eagle River. He began talking about suicide. They would argue. She spoke to some sergeants and they agreed to take her husband's personal weapons: a .44-magnum revolver and shotgun.
GUNS GIVEN BACK
On March 18, the couple was attending a marriage counseling session on Fort Rich. Lacy Griffis said hurtful words were spoken, then her husband told her she had messed up and ran from the room. She immediately called her squad leader, who asked if her husband had his weapons.
"As far as I know, no," she replied. The squad leader called Steven Griffis' sergeant. He found out the weapons had been returned because Griffis had been acting more stable. The squad leader called Lacy Griffis back with the bad news. She wanted to race home but was told to stay on base.
"They were afraid he was going to kill me instead of himself," she said. She called the MPs at the entrance to the base, but Griffis had just left and they had no jurisdiction in Eagle River. She called Anchorage Police.
"I was hysterical. I was like, 'I want someone there right now, right now, right now.'" The dispatcher tried to calm her. "I was like, 'I'm not calming down until there's someone there breaking down my damn door.' "
A good friend of Griffis raced toward Eagle River, too. As he drove, he was texting Griffis.
"You aren't going to hurt ur self r u?" the friend wrote, according to an Anchorage police report.
"Sorry," was Griffis' reply.
When Anchorage police arrived, Griffis was inside and the friend outside. Anchorage Police Officer Justin Voss tried to call Griffis, but he didn't answer.
The cops got the key to the apartment and crawled in. Voss reported seeing the boots of a soldier at the top of a flight of stairs. The soldier's right forearm was pointing in the direction of his own head.
Griffis' home phone was ringing. No one answered. When the answering machine came on, Voss heard a female voice urging Griffis to open the door for police.
Voss called to Griffis, then heard a gunshot. Griffis tumbled down the stairs, still alive but shot through the head. He died on the way to the hospital.
Over the summer, Lacy Griffis got a reassignment to a base in the South.
"Both of us were incredibly stressed out, pretty much all the time," she said. Some of it was their relationship, but their deployment and their jobs also played a big part, she said. "There was just so much going on and there was just one thing right after the other."
COMING MONDAY
Changing a culture of silence. A tough soldier battles a new enemy.
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