It is not always easy to be in the military. Many people experience horrible things and they do not get adequate help from the military to handle their traumas. Sadly, this leads to many veterans committing suicide. This is the focus point in Daniel Magruder’s article “My Best Friend Dies by Suicide. I Wish I Had Seen the Warning Signs” from 2019. In the article, Magruder introduces his best friend, an Air Force veteran with PTSD, who committed suicide in 2013 after unsuccessfully trying to get help and uses him as an example of how the military is failing its veterans.
For Magruder, it is important along with his article to try and spread awareness about the issue of suicide and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) among the veterans. The sender of the article is Daniel Magruder, Magruder served in the US Air Force at the same time as his friend Neil Landsberg. “Neil and I first met when we attended the Air Force’s special-tactics officer-selection course as cadets in March 2002.” (L. 12-13). The event of Landsberg’s suicide has inspired Magruder to write the article, among other things because Magruder feels grief but also guilt about Landsberg’s suicide, he feels guilty because of not being aware of Landsberg’s struggle with PTSD. “When I saw Neil’s name etched into the stone I cried for the first time. The guilt of not being aware of his inner struggle and my failure to intervene crushed me.” (L. 87-88). In the article, Magruder uses a personal story to spread awareness about the issue, by using a personal story Magruder’s approach becomes personal and subjective. Having a subjective approach means that Magruder could be making assumptions or making interpretations based on personal opinions without any verifiable facts to rely on such as statistics.
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