Before I retired from the federal civil service in 1974 I was the civilian
deputy to the Inspector General (IG) at McClellan Air Force Base, a
large military installation near Sacramento, California. I was and am a
civilian and a non-professional lay person in all mental health
disciplines. I attribute my involvement in 'suicide prevention' to
circumstances of the 'Viet Nam' period. At that time, many military
mental health professionals and other caregivers were on duty at medical
and mental health facilities in Southeast Asia, at way stations along
routes for military personnel returning to the U S, and at medical and
other facilities in the U. S. where Armed Forces wounded received care.
One result was a general shortage of mental health specialists and staff at
military installations in the continental U. S. Existing staff, including
untrained civilian employees, were often assigned 'additional duties' to
fill gaps.
In 1969, the McClellan Air Force Base senior Commander instructed me
to represent him on the Sacramento County Mental Health Council. At
the time, the Council was considering the establishment of a county
Suicide Prevention Service (SPS). The SPS was approved, and I became
involved as a volunteer worker. As the SPS functions and workload
became clear, I joined its paraprofessional training to certification and
when the Service became operational I took my turn on the 'hotline,'
especially those related to my McClellan responsibilities. I extended my
duties to include SPS liaison with several other military bases in the
Sacramento area. At that time, central California and Nevada had
military installations where military personnel of all Services were
stationed for training and operations, or who were in transit to or from
Southeast Asia. In effect, the Sacramento-San Francisco corridor in the
late 1960s-early 1970s was filled with military personnel on their way to
and from Viet Nam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. From the outset,
as word spread about Sacramento County's SPS hotline, increasing
numbers of calls came in from potential and selected draftees and active
duty members of the Armed Forces and their families.
One of my Inspector General's office responsibilities was to organize
and operate McClellan AFB's support to the Air Force Inspector General
Complaints System. The basic principle of the System holds that, as a
last resort within their organization, military and civilian personnel and
members of military families have the right to address a grievance or
appeal to the installation's Inspector General. The installation Inspector
General represents the installation's senior Commander in these matters.
An appeal to the IG may be for information and explanations concerning
status and duties, to describe perceived unreasonable conditions under
which the appellant works, to report on inadequate support to themselves
or their dependents or, for other reasons to seek relief from what the
grievant considers an intolerable and unjustifiable situation.
The IG, or deputy IG, acting for the senior Commander, hears
complaints and appeals and conducts such inquiries and investigations
that may be required to resolve the matters. In the context of this
memoir, when hearing (or reading) a complaint, there were occasions
when a complainant hinted at suicide as the only remaining option
should he or she not be given what they considered a reasonable
resolution of the problem they presented.
A significant number of phone calls was also being received by the
County Suicide Prevention Service 'hotline' from active duty military,
military veterans and retired military of all Services, and from members
of their families. Many, if not most, such calls (to the SPS) required
information or actions from a military or other government entity.
The SPS policy was to not disclose a caller's identity: Protecting a
hotline caller's identity is (or was at the time) generally practiced by most
crisis intervention centers unless the situation was an imminent life-death
crisis.
Organized, volunteer-staffed, telephone suicide prevention 'hotline'
services were beginning to appear in the larger cities throughout the U.
S. in the late '60s; less than a hundred were in operation across the U S
at the time. In order that I might better understand the 'suicide'
phenomenon and to accomplish my duties in support of the USAF IG
Complaints System, I became a regular volunteer at the SPS, attended
their ongoing paraprofessional upgrade training, and worked a shift on
the hotline. I served with the SPS Speakers Bureau, Executive Board
and other committees and gave talks about the community program at
staff, non-commissioned officers', military dependents', and civilian
community meetings.
Job-related, I compiled an information kit on suicide myths, and the
signs that would generally indicate that a friend or family member might
be thinking of suicide. I sent copies of whatever literature I acquired
from the SPS and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to my
counterparts at other military bases. The USAF Inspector General
printed an article about the information kits in the USAF TIG BRIEF
(The Inspector General Brief) an IG administrative newsletter distributed
to USAF facilities worldwide and to the Hqs of the other Services. The
TIG Brief newsletter was also distributed in Viet Nam. The item
resulted in more than 150 requests from Southeast Asia for the
information packet, which we forwarded.
During talks I gave to military and general audiences I was occasionally
asked for examples of what 'hotline' exchanges with military callers were
like. Two of the 3 summaries that follow were related to the Viet Nam
conflict. The third is a problem all too common, regardless of the times;
it happened and continues to happen as often in the civilian world as it
does in the military. I've screened my recollections so as to honor my
commitments to confidentiality. The narration reflects a tiny sample of
the effects of stress that can surface in military life and is not intended to
represent major emotional, behavioral, or physical indicators toward
suicide ideation. My regular work shift at the SPS brought me as much
of a military-civilian mix of callers as the other hotline workers, so I've
seen both sides.
The contacts were all by telephone, and in two of the three cases led to a
number of quick follow-on calls to several parties on and off the base.
Each caller had the potential for violence, either to self or another. If
intervention, at a high point in the interaction failed, the situation might
well have deteriorated, possibly with tragic results.