While on the job in the McClellan IG office, a phone call came in from
the SPS Director who told me he needed my help right then. A young
Army draftee was on the SPS hotline and he was threatening to commit
suicide. He was supposed to be on his way to Viet Nam but he had
gone AWOL instead. He was far from home and felt lost and confused.
He said he had one question before deciding whether to kill himself:
'What'll they do to me if I turn myself in?' He wouldn't identify himself
or say where he was.
The SPS Director said that he didn't have the answer. He told the soldier
he had a contact at a nearby military base that could check it out.
Holding him on one line he called me on another and gave me the facts.
I immediately called the Staff Judge Advocate - who was part of my on-
base network - and had him phone the SPS Director immediately to
review the ramifications of military justice as it might apply. The SPS
Director passed the information to the soldier and then talked to him for
about an hour. The guidance provided by the Staff Judge Advocate gave
the soldier options that might reduce potential charges he faced, not
ruling out desertion. We never found out what the soldier decided; he
never called back.
This call, and how it was handled, demonstrated teamwork between a
community suicide prevention resource and military and civil service
administrators on a military base. Comparable groundbreaking was
going on in other military-civilian communities and contexts.