Death Before Dishonor

This motto is widely used in the Marines. It's something I really paid little attention to before Mike died. He took it seriously. In fact, I am certain that is why he took his life. The circumstances leading up to his passing support this too. The days prior to his death he took down all his military awards  plaques memorials and photos from his garage.

When the SWAT team made entry to the house that night he was found in his gym shorts. In his pocket was only his drivers license.
Now, anyone who knows a Marine knows they have their military ID on them always,  he didn't want to be identified as a marine after taking his life. In his eyes, suicide was a sign of weakness and Marines weren't weak.

I spent eight years trying to convince him to get help and when he finally realized it he decided he'd rather die than dishonor the cherished Corps.

Because he never sought help I am now repeating history trying to convince the VA he was sick. It's like Deja vu. It's insult to injury.

What the VA just doesn't understand is my husband did not die of old age peacefully in his sleep surrounded by his children and grandchildren.

Obviously when you see he's a retired Marine,  served in three wars...you imagine an old man who's lived a full life.

No, he was 38 years old. He had only been retired four months.  How do they not see that is service connected? They say it's my responsibility to prove it. I counter with that and say you prove how it could be anything else.

He didn't die a quick death either. Although it took roughly three minutes from the time I found him with the gun and the shot ringing out on the other side of that garage door...he died a little every day for 8 years. I watched the light in his eyes dim. It was like cancer to his soul.

And now I have to continue to fight for his fucking honor after death,  just so he can be recognized not as a weak man but as a sick and neglected man. What the VA doesn't get, is that not only was traumatic on us...so is the way we've been treated in the 14 months since he died. The man sacrificed essentially his entire adult life for the country and the country says...prove you deserve our service.

The proof is written in all caps on his headstone:

Persian Gulf
Iraq
Afghanistan

What more is there to prove? The people making these decisions have never laid their life down for the nation.

Part of me wants to give up and salvage what is left of my life but then the burning determination to right the wrong takes over. His death was service connected. I WILL prove it.

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