The subjects of reasoning and emotions in chapter 13 of Goldstein’s Cognitive Psychology book caused me to reflect on the lives of close friends and comrades that have been senselessly lost without clear rhyme or reason over the last 8 years.  On each occurrence, I have wrestled with wonderment as to what goes through the mind of a person who chooses to commit suicide.  This subject has always baffled me, and it continues to hit home for me.

As recently as 4 months ago, a fellow comrade chose to end it all; although he was living a rewarding military career, sharing his life with a woman who was not only his wife, but seemed to also be his best friend, and he was proudly raising the exact replica of himself; the son that he always wanted.  His character unfortunately became flawed in an instance by one single act of his own; however, in my own reasoning, no mistake or blotched image seems to be reason enough to no longer want to live.  Emotionally fueled, and obviously unreasonable, SGT Lance’s (name change) death was tragic; yet, I want to say with certainty, that it was unnecessary and preventable.  Lance had several friends whom he had spoken to and hung out with the day prior to his death, but no one suspected the fact that he was too emotional to obviously think reasonably about the situation that he was now facing.  Of course there were rumors about the situation that he had caused for himself and his image had become slightly tarnished; however, how could a smudge be enough to take such a drastic (permanent) measure?  I often ponder what his reasoning was for feeling as though he no longer desired to live.  “According to Leighton and Kurtz, reasoning is ‘the process of drawing conclusions (Leighton, 2004) and as the cognitive processes by which people start with information and come to conclusions that go beyond that information’ (Kurtz et al., 1999).  Goldstein concludes that, “we can appreciate the process of reasoning by realizing that decisions are often the outcome of reasoning.” (Goldstein, 2011)  Still, I wonder how reasoning is appreciated, when the decided outcome is suicide.

Just as with Lance, I wonder if the nature of Toney’s reasoning: which killed him in 2007, CSM Stellar’s reasoning; which killed him in 2009, SSG Drill’s reasoning, which killed him in 2012, and SSG Scout’s reasoning; which also killed him a month prior to Lance, inductive in any way?  Knowing that each of them had challenging concerns in which they had previously witnessed the outcome of the same challenge through the lives of others, did they all make a prediction about what was going to happen to them, their careers, and perhaps their families based off of evidence and events from the past or other people? (Goldstein, 2011)  Were they met with a roadblock of confirmation bias, which disallowed them to reason accurately? (Goldstein, 2011)  Where they all convinced that they possessed legitimate information that was far from truth?  Only each of those individuals will ever truly know how their emotions affected their ability to reason.

“Toney, who killed himself in Iraq, managed to seclude himself long enough to place the muzzle of his rifle under his chin and pull the trigger.”  Lance walked to a park alone and tragically shot himself in the head, only to be found hours later by his best friend and wife lying in the middle of the field face down in his own pool of blood.  CSM Stellar shot himself in the head in Iraq while his wife (who was battling cancer) was at home awaiting his return with their three young children.  SSG Drill shot himself at home and failed to show for work the next day, SSG Scout hung himself, also at home and was found by his wife.

As I honor my brothers in arms, even today, I wonder what each of their immediate emotions was prior to pulling the trigger and releasing the slack on the rope that took their lives.  “According to Goldstein, ‘integral immediate emotions are associated with the act of making a decision.’ Anxiety is the integral emotion associated with making the decision and is probably the emotion that affects the decision.” (Goldstein, 2011)  “Even after draping the United States flag over Toney’s casket and watching him (his body) get placed inside an aircraft to take his final journey back to the United States, I possessed so many emotions of my own.”  After escorting CSM Stellar’s sick wife to his memorial to say her final farewell while she wondered who would raise their children if she eventually succumbed to her own illness, and after attending the memorials of my other brothers and comrades, there are no words that could possibly reason the outcome of each tragedy.  Lance, Toney, Stellar, Drill and Scott “all surrendered to events in their lives that left them in a state of what seemed to be too emotional to reason…still searching for a way to appreciate it all.”

Rest In Peace, Men!