Rob Riggle examines why veterans kill themselves at alarming rates, tracing it to military culture that teaches suppression of weakness and the isolation that follows. He argues reconnecting veterans through service to others can break the cycle and provide the purpose that keeps them alive.
I work with a lot of veterans organizations, and we have a suicide problem in our veteran community. And one of the number one things that leads to these suicides is these veterans don't— they stop communicating. They isolate, and that starts their path to destruction. Because they feel like they can't share. They don't want to. They've got this macho thing where they can't be vulnerable. They learned in war, they learned somewhere in their journey that vulnerability doesn't work for them, or they can't be vulnerable. And so they can't show any kind of weakness because it's been used against them, or it will be used against them, or somehow it leaves them open to death or destruction in some form. So they stop. Being vulnerable. Therefore, when they're in pain or when they're suffering, they don't feel like they can talk about it. So they isolate, and then they fall deeper and deeper and deeper into despair, and then they end up hurting themselves. So it goes back to connection right here like this. And one of the things that I've found helps a lot of these veterans is finding that connection to service, serving others. But it's when you stop engaging, I think you start going down a very scary path.
