"We want a full investigation, and we think media attention will hold the right feet to the fire so that we get one."

NOTE from Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org ... Use our search engine to find out more about military and veteran suicide.

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Soldier's family wants probe of suicide

By Will Higgins

The event Friday at a small airport in Zionsville had become all too common: a soldier being returned to his family in a casket.

But it also was unusual: Such grim homecomings had been private, but this time the media were present at the request of the soldier's family.

"We want a full (death) investigation, and we think media attention will hold the right feet to the fire so that we get one," said Gregg Keesling, whose son, Army Spc. Chancellor Keesling, died while serving in Iraq.

Chancellor Keesling's death, in Baghdad on June 19, was a suicide -- one of a growing number of military suicides as the lingering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan necessitate multiple deployments.

Keesling, 25, was two weeks into his second tour.

So far this year, there have been 82 confirmed or suspected suicides among active-duty U.S. soldiers, compared with 51 a year ago, according to Defense Department statistics.

The military has created a suicide prevention task force and hired additional mental health counselors.

"More needs to be done," Gregg Keesling said. He said the family's intent was not malicious, but that they wanted to "wrest some meaning" from the young soldier's death.

Keesling, executive director of Workforce Inc., an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that helps ex-offenders find jobs, also is pursuing political channels.

He recently contacted Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., who said later in a prepared statement: "I know the U.S. military is working to address the issue of suicide among its ranks. But the heartbreaking loss of Chancellor is a clear sign that more must be done to address this epidemic."

"This has been an issue I have raised in the past with military leaders, and I pledge to be a supporting voice in Washington for the Keesling family as they try to push for more changes that can save lives," he said.

Keesling's body, like those of all U.S. soldiers who die in Iraq or Afghanistan, arrived first at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Until recently, the Defense Department barred photographs of the thousands of caskets that arrive there. Critics such as Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., called the media blackout an attempt to "conceal from the American people the true costs of this war."

The Obama administration lifted the Dover ban in April.

However, the government never barred access to the fallen soldiers' hometown arrivals. In Indiana, it was the families who barred them -- at his urging, said Richard Karkowski, state coordinator of military funerals.

Karkowski is responsible for the half-dozen soldiers who carry the casket from the plane to the hearse. It's high ceremony: The soldiers are in dress blues and white gloves and march quietly in unison, the casket wrapped in an American flag.

"We encourage a private mourning," Karkowski said, "because families don't realize how their emotions will take over. My biggest fear is that a family member would throw themselves on the casket as my soldiers are carrying it. That would jeopardize my soldiers and the soldier in the casket.

"But . . . we do all we can to accommodate them. It's their event."

Keesling's family assembled on the runway at Indianapolis Executive Airport Friday as the plane carrying Chancellor Keesling's body taxied to the terminal. They sat in folding chairs as a military chaplain read from the Book of Psalms.

They were ushered to the casket. They laid their hands on it and embraced one another. They sobbed.

Chancellor Keesling was the 111th soldier with Indiana ties to die in the Iraq war; 23 have died in Afghanistan.

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TOPICS: veterans, veterans' benefits, VA, Department of Veterans' Affairs, suicide