Almost once every hour a U.S. military veteran takes his or her life. The Department of Veterans Affairs reports that 22 veterans commit suicide every day, on average.
Austin veteran Andrew O’Brien almost become one of them. He survived a suicide attempt in 2010, after returning from a 12-month deployment to Iraq. Now he’s telling his story to raise awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder and military suicides.
We spoke with O’Brien about how the deaths of fellow soldiers and lack of help from the military led up to his attempt.
I just stopped talking about it, and I just pushed it down and pushed it down, and then a couple of months later, in November of 2010, I just decided I was done, I was tired of pushing it down, I was tired of not being able to talk about it and open up about it and feeling ashamed for feeling the way I did.
You can hear the full conversation by clicking the player above.
