Kevin Lucey, whose son took his life after a tour of duty in Iraq, is pleased with Barack Obama's decision to send condolence letters to families of troops who commit suicide.
Kevin LuceyBELCHERTOWN – President Barack Obama’s offer to send condolence letters to families of soldiers who commit suicide is a step in the right direction, said the father of Cpl. Jeffrey M. Lucey, a Marine who took his own life after returning home from Iraq.
In a break from past policy, Obama announced this week that he will begin sending letters to the families of military personnel who take their own lives while serving in war zones overseas.
“They didn’t die because they are weak,” Obama said, “and the fact that they didn’t get the help they needed must change.”
Kevin P. Lucey said Thursday that Obama’s message is a major change from the one on the shirt his son wore after returning from Iraq in 2003. On the front of the shirt was the word “Marines,” Lucey said. On the back, it said “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”
“This is a huge step in addressing the stigma (of seeking help for mental health issues),” Lucey said. “The president says this is a wound of war.”
Jeffrey Lucey feared to admit that he needed help for his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when he got home from his tour of Iraq in 2003. As his family later learned, he witnessed some horrors there that would haunt him for the rest of his days. Lucey carried with him a tiny American flag he had found in the fist of an Iraqi boy who had been shot to death in the streets of Nasiriyah. He also told his sister he had been ordered to execute two captured Iraqi soldiers. The Marines Corps says it has found no evidence of this.
After coming home to Belchertown, Jeffrey Lucey began drinking. He was reluctant to seek treatment for his mental health problems, his father said, because Jeffrey was afraid it would hurt his chances to become a state police trooper. Nonetheless, he was admitted to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds in May 2004. The VA discharged Lucey four days later after diagnosing him with alcoholism and mood swings. Jeffrey Lucey hanged himself in the basement of his parents’ home on June 22, 2004. He was 23.
The family sued the U.S. government for wrongful death. The case settled out of court for $350,000 and a promise by the government of significant improvements in suicide prevention at the VA. Still, the Luceys pressed the government to put more effort into addressing military suicide. In a column published in The Republican on Veterans Day 2010, Kevin and Joyce Lucey took Obama to task, saying he “refuses to acknowledge the sacrifices of those who fell to the hidden psychological wounds of war.”
Now that the President has done so, Kevin Lucey said it is “bittersweet,” in part because the letters will be sent only to the families of those who killed themselves in war zones and will not address past military suicides.
“It’s good as long as they can start giving fast and effective service to the families that have followed us,” Kevin Lucey said. “I thank him for it.”
Lucey spoke about the condolence letters during an interview with Amy Goodman on her radio show “Democracy Now.” The family has been outspoken on the issue of military suicide in the years since Jeffrey’s death, taking part in Military Families Speak Out.
Kevin Lucey credited that organization as well as the American Legion and the Jeffrey Lucey Chapter of Veterans for Peace for keeping the subject in the public spotlight. The Veterans For Peace chapter, which is located on Cape Cod, renamed itself for Jeffrey Lucey in March and has dedicated its efforts to addressing suicide in the military.
According to a U.S. Army survey, 22 soldiers per 100,000 take their own lives in that branch of the military. The Navy and Air Force have also reported an increase in the rate of suicide in recent years. The Marine Corps says suicides have dropped there since 2009.