Fulda family aims to get more help for reintegrating soldiers

• Gould

rever Gould of Fulda, shown here in this photo from December 2011 with his dog, Cisco, was 25 years old when he committed suicide after serving four years in the U.S. Army.

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FULDA — Sheri Johnson has a stack of military documents more than two inches thick that belonged to her son, Trever Gould. She found them in his room after he committed suicide June 21, approximately two years after separating from the U.S. Army.

The documents, she said, show that her son reported his suicidal thoughts to the military before he left Fort Hood, Texas.

Trever was 25 years old when he hung himself, leaving Sheri to find his body. He had served in the Army four years and spent 15 months in Iraq.

“I knew from the get-go he was a different guy,” Sheri said of her son after his return to Fulda. “He called me from Iraq the first time he took a person’s life and asked me if I thought God would forgive him. He wondered if that man had a family, and he cried.”

Trever graduated from Fulda High School in 2005, and after a short stint in college, joined the Army — a decision Sheri said they made together.

“We lost a family member at the Pentagon in 9/11, and he thought the Army would be good discipline and a solid job,” she said.

Before joining the service, Trever had an easy-going personality, his sisters Brook Johnson and Kylie Gould said.

“He was always pretty laid back,” Brook stated. “He had a lot of friends. He was involved with a lot of people.”

“He had a lot of fun,” Kylie added.

During his first trip home after boot camp, Trever was proud of being a member of the Army and talked to his friends about joining the service. While deployed in Iraq, he was able to take a trip home, visiting for two weeks. At that time, there was so much going on and so many visitors that his sisters didn’t notice a difference in his demeanor.

When he separated from the service, it was a different story.

“He didn’t have fun anymore,” Sheri explained. “He stayed to himself a lot, just having a couple of close friends.”

He rarely, she said, talked about Iraq. She knew he had worked on heavy equipment and went out on missions, but he didn’t speak of what he had done or the things he had experienced. Even when he was asked about the Combat Action Badge Certificate he received, he didn’t say much.

“I knew that he killed a man and saved his platoon,” Sheri said.

The certificate, now in a sleeve in a photo album, states PV 2 Trever Gould was personally present and under direct hostile enemy fire while supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and assigned to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

There were a few times Trever would sit down and talk with his mother, but by the time he had been home for two weeks, he had shut down, she said. He was withdrawn and angry, drank more often and once got into an argument with a friend and punched a wall, breaking his hand. He had cut himself off from many of his friends and tended to snap at his sisters.

He had a hard time finding a job, and his mood was up and down. Sheri said no reintegration services were offered to her son, and it wasn’t until after he had died that she found his military medical file. She was shocked at what she read.

“He had asked for help,” she said.

The documents show Trever had a command-directed mental health evaluation in 2009 at Fort Hood, “after expressing thoughts of self-harm.” He was described as dysphoric, an emotional state characterized by anxiety, depression or unease, and had reduced interest in activities and poor concentration. The document also states he wanted out of the Army and when “he gets angry he is in the Army and is irritated, making him want to hurt people,” he had thoughts of jumping off his balcony.

The papers mention he had been accused of having marijuana in his system and had reported being treated poorly by co-workers. A document, dated Oct 9, 2009, also states he had tried to get released from the Army in 2007, before going to Iraq.

The diagnosis he was given in 2009 was that of an adjustment disorder with a depressed mood, disturbed emotion and conduct. He denied previous suicide attempts, the documents state, and denied thoughts of killing others. He was referred to treatment, but the person he spoke to noted he was not interested. The only way he would feel better, he allegedly reported, is if he could be out of the Army and back home with his family.

“He knew if he went into treatment, he couldn’t come home,” Sheri said.

A document from the ACH Counsel Center Social Work states, “He does not want help either from us or the VA” and mentions Chapter 14, which is a separation for misconduct.

Sheri said that with help from her son-in-law, a member of the military, she is still reading through the pile of paperwork. Most of it she found in his room, but she also found documents in his car. One of those was a pre-separation counseling checklist, with an anticipated separation date of July 10, 2010.

His symptoms, which she thinks were that of post-traumatic stress disorder, were more noticeable in hindsight, she said, and she wants to have things changed for active duty military personnel. National Guard members get more counseling than active duty members, she believes, because those in the service full-time are expected to be strong.

“Our soldiers need help… not to get thrown to the side,” she said. “People need to be accountable to our soldiers.”

One man from her son’s unit committed “suicide by cop,” she said, and many others, after coming back from Iraq, ended up divorced after becoming violent. The soldiers need more counseling and deprogramming before being dismissed, she said.

“They took my son,” Sheri stated. “He died in Iraq, but came home.”

She hopes family and friends will pay close attention to service members who return from duty and make sure they get they help readjusting to civilian life.

“I never pictured Trever —someone who was always so strong — so broken down,” Sheri admitted. “We lived through a suicide, and Trever was so mad his dad did that, so for him to be so messed up that he took his own life …”

She wants people to be aware that it isn’t just soldiers suffering — the families are suffering right alongside them. She plans to get in touch with representatives, senators and anyone else she can reach. If civilians report being suicidal, they are put in the hospital on a 72-hour hold, she said, but the military didn’t take steps to keep her son safe. She believes he should not have been allowed to leave Fort Hood.

“To lose our soldiers because our government has failed them — it just isn’t right,” she said. “Just because our men and women take the service on as a job does not mean they have less rights than those who serve part-time.”

An online memorial site has been set up at http://www.facebook.com/TrevorGouldMemorial. Donations to help pay for his burial can be sent to the Trever Gould Memorial Fund at First State Bank Southwest – Worthington, 1433 Oxford St., Box 725, Worthington 56187-0725.

Daily Globe Reporter Justine Wettschreck may be reached at 376-7322.

Tags: news, fulda, soldiers, military