Author Spotlight
Preston Hooker
We were told that we’d know what happened when we got home.
“We should stop overthinking it,” my sister said as we sat in silence in my mom’s car after being picked up early from school. We were both scared, but assumed some distant relative had passed.
Picturing the reason we were called out as a natural and inevitable loss made it easier for me to sit there and wait, not knowing what was to come.
When we got home my parents were sitting silently on the couch. Once we sat down they told us. My dad’s best friend, a former Marine Raider and close friend of mine — Frenchie — had died that morning.
“Death by suicide.”
Reaching out to veterans in need is simple and can save countless lives, even if you can’t see clear signs of mental illness initially. Just reach out, as I know how much I wish I did in regards to mental health.
I called him every week though, and we’d talk until one of us had to go since we couldn’t meet up in-person. He lived in Montana, and I’d driven up twice to see him surrounded by mountains and national parks. I was excited for a third visit. Now I’m not so excited.
I didn’t know Frenchie too well until about four years ago. I came down to the basement where my dad was on a call with him talking about military technology. I had input on the matter and used the correct jargon and language without thinking twice. Frenchie was so impressed he bought me a year-long “Master Class” subscription.
We talked frequently from there, the topic of discussion being something intellectually straining like philosophy or technology. It felt like he saw me as more than just a teenage boy, but as a friend — someone he could genuinely talk to.
When I started to struggle with suicidal ideation at the end of last year, I didn’t tell anyone. So, when I eventually went in-patient my parents were confused and scared. When my dad first saw me in that psych ward, the first thing he said was “I have someone you should talk to — they’ve had a similar struggle.”
That someone was Frenchie.
We began to call more frequently, whenever we were both available. I told him everything, and he opened up some too.
It took me hours of therapy and medication to see that there is a way out, but I don’t have post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I don’t have the same kind of trauma that Frenchie had. The lack of resources available to veterans has put emphasis on mental health more than ever because the source of the problem is directly seen as PTSD. But the evidence of how inefficient this system has been is overbearing.
According to the 2023 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report — over 17 veterans die by suicide daily in the U.S.. Those are 17 individual lives that fought for the very country that didn’t account for the trauma they induced.
Reaching out to those who have served and encouraging them to seek help is something everyone can do, all you need to do is inform others.
Frenchie had tried to get help by going into in-patient therapy, yet it either wasn’t enough or wasn’t the right fit for him. He shouldn’t have had to seek out help; help should’ve sought him out.
I understand that the military has become much more accountable for PTSD and trauma with the addition of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) programs in recent years, but that doesn’t regard the thousands of former-soldiers who are still suffering every day.
Frenchie had done it all, he’d flown an F/A-18 Hornet, deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Japan. He graduated from the U.S. Navy-Fighter Weapons School — TOPGUN — and fought with a special forces battalion as well as earned countless medals and awards while amassing over 400 combat flight hours.
He was the perfect soldier, but even a man like him didn’t receive the emotional support he needed. His duty was to follow orders without hesitation or question, yet had to live with the haunting burden of his actions that he was ordered to carry out by the U.S., causing large amounts of PTSD and guilt.
This was all during the early to late 2000s, so the mental health advocacy had just started to become abundant. The main program — TRICARE coverage — was founded in 1996 but didn’t see real use until the early 2010s.
Yet the program still requires former or current military personnel to ask for help, when I believe that it should be a requirement to have multiple evaluative sessions with a professional psychologist or therapist in order to determine if more help is required or not.
And there are very successful solutions like EMDR, which has shown that up to 90% of single-trauma (single events that are traumatizing) victims no longer have PTSD after only three 90-minute sessions, according to PTSD UK.
Everyone has their struggles, but ignoring a huge cause of them for thousands of Americans is tolerated up until it impacts someone personally. I know that everyone that knew Frenchie wishes they would have reached out to help, as do I — yet there is no real way we could have helped. We are not professionals, we can’t prescribe medication or properly diagnose illnesses.
I encourage those who have family members or friends that are or have been in the military to find any potential signs of PTSD, as there are solutions. There is hope.
That day when I was called out of school, he was the last thing on my mind, and now he consumes it, but that doesn’t mean anyone else has to lose their Frenchie, because I know how much I miss mine.
This is such a well-written and thoughtful piece. Excellent work.