Remember the number 22

This goes out to every G.I., to Devil Dog and the other members of the U.S. Armed forces —active and veteran. I am going to be blunt like a good NCO should be. This needs to be said. This needs to be stopped. And it all boils down to a number.

That number is 22.

That’s the number of us who offed ourselves every day last year — 22 per day. Dead as in doornails, by our own hands. Get the picture? Good, I knew you would.

And you know what? That number, frankly, sucks. This statistic needs to be 86ed, put in file 13 — in other words, chucked down a hole and buried. We need to lower this to zero. We, as in us, American GIs.

As an ex-Huey jock, FO and wrench monkey of the U.S. Army regretfully retired, I am going to tell you plain and simple that too many of us are dying on a daily basis. That number 22 isn’t BS. It was the figure of how many of us died each day by our own hands last year. Burn that number into your brain, 22 per day. It’s time we did something about it.

Now then, I want you remember two more numbers — 7 and 4.

As in, 7-year-old John Murray Jr., and four, as in four Post-It notes with the simple words scrawled out in his best handwriting, “Ask For Help!!!”

From the wisdom of a child comes a simple solution to a menace that is flooding and thinning our ranks daily, especially, the U.S. Army. His own father is one of us, U.S. Army Sgt. John Murray.

It all started when this little boy asked his mother, Ingrid, a question about a word on a pamphlet inside the base health center on Redstone Arsenal Huntsville, Ala. The word was “suicide.” His mom, with some reluctance, explained it to him. He got it in one take. The little guy summed it up like this: “When they don’t have any broken arms or legs and no blood, you can’t see the sadness inside them, but they still need help.”

Not bad for someone so young. Not bad at all.

So he left four Post-Its notes on a table at the heath center. One for each word, and the fourth for the exclamation points in the hope that, well I will quote him again: “There’s other people that care about you and want you to ask for help.”

I couldn’t have said it any better and I have written more than a few articles on this very subject. Face it, this young boy has got our six. Got in spades.

John’s mother wrote to the Army’s website telling all about the simple wisdom of her 7-year-old. Well, they loved it and plastered it all over the place. The media picked up on it, too. That is how I first heard of this little boy and his message. I clapped for joy when I saw it on TV.

We who have served are a family, and our family is hurting badly. Leave it to our youngest family member to spell it out plain and simple. Take the message as gospel and spread it to all out there. Just like I’m doing here. To all of us out there, the survivors of the “Sandbox,” the twin wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But not just them, tell all those who fought for this country’s past wars, too.

So listen up! Ask. For. Help!!!

‘nuff said. Fallout.

Wasilla resident Daniel D. Grota retired from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of service.

If you need help, here are a couple of good places to start:

• Wasilla Veteran’s Center, 851 E. West Point Dr. Suite 111, Wasilla, or call 376-4318.

• VA Crisis Line, (800) 273-8255, press 1, or online at veternscrisisline.net.