Bringing Closure

It's really hard to figure what more the Canadian Forces could possibly do to prevent a soldier returning from overseas duty from being depressed to the point where they eventually attempt suicide, and eventually succeed. If someone is that determined, they will succeed. No one can be kept on a 24-hour suicide watch. And someone who had attempted suicide no fewer than five times and who finally succeeded did so because he needed to.

Cpl. Stuart Langridge, who had served in Bosnia and had been involved as a member of a high-risk reconnaissance unit in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan in Kabul, died in 2008, buried on his 28th birthday. His grieving mother and step-father seem to feel that the military is at fault for failing their son. What possibly is inexplicable and damaging to the military is that Cpl. Langridge's suicide note was withheld from his family for over a year.

But what the military, who clearly mourn and heavily regret any loss of their own, surely cannot be accused of, is abandoning one of their own at his time of anguish and need. But solutions do not necessarily come readily to hand. Particularly when someone has succumbed to some perceived inner need and turns to alcohol and drugs and becomes addicted to both, thus complicating an already complex emotional need.

The family claims, and their lawyer reiterates, their belief that Cpl. Langridge was an unfortunate victim of post traumatic stress syndrome. An acute form of PTSD, according to reports in the media. His mother and stepfather have mounted over 30 allegations of wrong-doing on the part of 13 military police officers, impacting on their son's state of distress and eventual successful suicide mission.

The military, for their part, insist they did what they could, using all the professional expertise available to them. They feel, also that it was Cpl. Langridge's addictions to alcohol and drugs that are heavily implicated in his depressive states and suicide attempts, and not, as his family claims, any condition relating to trauma experienced overseas.

Shortly before his death Cpl. Langridge had completed 30 days of psychiatric treatment, leaving hospital to return to CFB Edmonton. Several days later, an argument with his girlfriend saw him living in his truck, and he asked base surgeon Major Richard Hannah to be returned to Alberta Hospital which at the time was not possible because its psychiatric unit was full.

He was instead accommodated with a bed at his unit, Lord Strathcona Horse, and was carefully followed. At the time he hanged himself he had traces of cocaine in his system. Major Richard Hannah insists Cpl. Langridge's problem was drug and alcohol addictions. "Cocaine can cause people to commit suicide."

He also pointed to the fact that no fewer than three separate psychiatric reports conclude with no evidence of PTSD. "I busted my butt to take care of Cpl. Langridge. He was a troubled young man who had many problems. I wanted to know whether we had dropped the ball. If I made a mistake I wanted to know. I didn't want Cpl. Langridge to die. That was the last thing I wanted to happen. If I had made a mistake, I would have put my hands up and admitted it."

It is a horrible dilemma for the parents of a young man to accept that he was in such torment that he chose to end his life rather than continue living. To ease their own grief and anguish, people look for reasons. And they grasp at the potential of being able to find those reasons, and if those reasons come complete with someone's neglect causing death, that too brings closure.