When Someone Tells You They Want To Die . . .

you hold their hand and you do not let them go.

If someone
became a Marine to fight for your country, whether you wanted him to or
not, you take care of him for the rest of his life because he protected
you.

From Anderson Cooper’s Blog:

Wednesday, March
14, 2007
VA hospital turned away suicidal vet, family says
Although he earned two purple hearts for fighting in Iraq, Marine
Jonathan Schulze was rejected by a Minnesota VA hospital when he needed
urgent treatment.

Schulze
was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by his family
physician. He was prescribed Ambien, Valium, and Paxil, but they didn’t
help. When Schulze began to feel suicidal, he turned to the VA hospital
in St. Cloud, Minnesota, about an hour outside Minneapolis.

His
father and stepmother both insist they heard Schulze tell the intake
nurse he was “suicidal.” But instead of admitting him, the hospital
told Schulze to go home and call back the next day.

The family says it was told the social worker who screens PTSD
patients was too busy to see him. When Schulze called back the next
day, his stepmom says she listened as he told the social worker he felt
suicidal. The hospital then responded by telling him he was Number 26
on the waiting list for one of 12 PTSD patient beds. In other words, he’d need to wait at least two weeks before he could get treatment.

Is
that any way to respond to a Iraqi Veteran who is telling you he’s
suicidal? And why, with the U.S. fighting two wars in the Middle East,
are there only 12 beds reserved at this hospital for PTSD patients? The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs expects one in five veterans will need to be treated for PTSD.

The
Marine’s dad, Jim Schulze, said, “When a vet cries out that he is
suicidal, even if they had to set up a bed in the kitchen, you don’t
turn them away. You don’t put them on a waiting list.”

Four
days after his visit to the VA hospital, Jonathan Schulze put a
household electric cord around his neck and hanged himself in the
basement of a friend’s home. A picture of his one-year-old daughter was
at his side.

“If our men are going to serve for our country
and serve in a war and a conflict then when they come home, they should
be taken care of. They were promised when they were in, when they
signed on the piece of paper, and they come home, and they have a
problem, and what are they told, you’re number 26?” his stepmom,
Marianne Schulze, told me through her tears.

The U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs is investigating why Schulze wasn’t
admitted immediately. It wouldn’t comment on the case. Neither would
the hospital.
Posted By Randi Kaye, CNN Correspondent: 4:37 PM ET