‘He seemed happier’: Stories shared to bring attention to veteran suicides

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Recently, the suicides of two celebrities made headlines in the news and on social media. For some, they raise the question: why don’t we hear more about the number of veterans who commit suicide?

Throughout the country, 22 take their own lives every day.

“Kevin’s gone. And that’s tough. Very tough to have to deal with that,” Cape Fear Community College Veteran Services Director Ray Charfauros said.

“But i never understood what having a broken heart would mean until Josh died,” Patty Owen said.

Charfauros and Owen have never met each other before, but have something in common. They both have lost someone to suicide. For Owen, it was her nephew Josh and for Charfauros, he lost two marines who served under him, Vinny and Kevin, in the past year.

“He seemed happier to us. But we found out later that there were things going on behind the scenes that we didn’t know about and the day that he did kill himself is when we found out,” Owen said.

“You know, it never gets easy. It never gets easy. I mean that was last year. two of my marines last year,” Charfauros said.

Both say it’s important to remember what many of these veterans have faced, not just at war, but when they come back home and try to adjust back to a normal life.

“They basically take their own life due to not reaching out or trying to cope with them, with the stresses they are going through in life and trying to find that identity and being lost is what its come down to,” Charfauros said.

Suicide does not just affect that one person, but it affects their loved ones as well.

“I love Josh like my son but I’ve known people whose children, their actual blood children have killed themselves and they never get over that grief,” Owen said.

They want veterans to know that there is always someone who will help.

“As a veteran’s director, I’m making sure that when a veteran walks through, it’s very important to me that I take care of them. I don’t want them to end up like Vinny and I don’t want them to end up like Kevin,” Charfauros said.

If you are a veteran looking for help or you think a loved one is in need, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or the Veteran affairs call center: 1-877-WAR-VETS (927-8387).