‘Warrior Medics’ urged to find hurting battle buddies hiding in their formations

Story by Sgt. 1st Class Neil W. McCabe

Army Reserve Medical Command

[PINELLAS PARK, Fla.] The Army Reserve Medical Command’s suicide prevention officer released a provocative video to highlight the command’s program to open up conversations among its Soldiers about their struggles and to encourage leaders to report suicide-related incidents in their units.

“There is a mentality where commanders and other leaders think it is better to have fewer reports of suicide-related events in a CCIR, or a commander’s critical incident report, but when I see a unit with little or none of these events, I get worried,” said Joseph A. Walser, a Marine officer veteran, who leads the command’s suicide prevention programs, including its wellness and resilience training programs.

CCIR is an Army shorthand for a Commander’s Critical Information Requirement, a situation report upon which the commander can make event-based decisions.

“On the other hand, when I see a unit with a spike in suicide-related events, I immediately want to know what they are doing—what they are doing right—because the incidents are happening, whether the commanders know about it or not,” Walser said.

In the video, Walser is dressed like a popular cartoon figure who is always drawn so that he is hiding in plain sight in a crowd.

“We know statistically that about 50 percent of Soldiers 18-to-24 are suffering from some sort of behavioral health,” he said in the 55-second video. “That’s just nationwide, 18-to-24.”

Walser said because the Army and the Army Reserve draw from the general population, it follows that those people struggling will bring their struggles to them when they put on the uniform.

“We also know that one out of 10 people are thinking about suicide. We have started an initiative connect to protect, reaching out, building trust, and giving the resources that Soldiers need,” he said. “Sometimes they’re suffering in silence.”

They are all around us, and they are standing in formations with us, he said in a costume of the often-hidden cartoon figure.

“They’re hard to find, and they could be anyone on any given day like this guy, so that’s why we’ve designed an initiative to find and help those people.”