JBLM soldier who killed self fell through cracks, soldiers and mom say

Derrick Kirkland’s friends thought they got him the care he needed in southern Iraq when they told commanders the 23-year-old Army specialist had raised a shotgun to his mouth and threatened to kill himself.

Their alarms – and a second suicide attempt – led the Army to evacuate Kirkland early last year from his base to Landstuhl, Germany. His next stop was Madigan Army Medical Center at his home station, Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

But Kirkland’s distress, so apparent to fellow soldiers, fell short of what a Madigan psychiatrist regarded as “high risk behavior” that would have kept him in the hospital under constant watch.

Instead, the Army assigned him a private bedroom in the barracks south of Tacoma on March 15, 2010, and sent him to work with his unit’s rear detachment.

He hanged himself four days later.

“They didn’t try to observe him,” said his mother, Mary Corkhill Kirkland, 49, of Indianapolis. “He just fell through the cracks.”

The Army agreed. It completed a review of Kirkland’s death in March, concluding that a lack of communication between the soldier’s unit in Iraq, Madigan and the soldiers who were to work with him at Lewis-McChord resulted in him failing to get the attention he needed.

Together, the report concluded, they could have done better to ensure “that the soldier was a priority to his unit and the Army.”

Madigan in the past two years has embraced an Army-wide push to prevent suicides and address post-traumatic stress among combat veterans. It has one of the largest behavioral health staffs among Army hospitals and it’s been at the front of the Defense Department’s efforts to take the stigma out of seeking help for emotional distress.

Yet suicides such as Kirkland’s continue, fueling a perception among some South Sound residents that the military isn’t doing enough to look after its own. The United Way of Pierce County even proposed – then backed off – a proposal to raise property taxes countywide this year to pay for more mental health care for service members.

Among the cases of troubled soldiers that played out badly:

• Since April 2010, four soldiers and two military contractors killed themselves within Lakewood’s city limits. The total number of Lewis-McChord soldiers committing suicide has held steady, with nine in each of the past two years and seven in 2008.

• In addition to the suicides that happen quietly, two Lewis-McChord killed themselves in the past year very publicly. In August, Spc. Brandon Barrett went AWOL and died in a shootout with police in Salt Lake City. In April, Sgt. David Stewart killed his wife and then himself off Interstate 5 in Thurston County. Police later found their 5-year-old son dead in their Spanaway home.

• Some soldiers who’ve sought counseling at Madigan report receiving superficial help that doesn’t address problems including sleep deprivation or depression. They worry that a failure to find the right therapist could lead to dangerous behavior or suicides.

MANY IN NEED

Kevin Baker, a former soldier who served with Kirkland on a previous deployment to Iraq, said Kirkland’s troubles were not unusual.

“It’s collectively a lot of people screaming out for help,” said Baker, who was part of Lewis-McChord’s 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division – one of three Stryker brigades that returned last summer in the biggest wave of local homecomings in a decade.

Baker served in the same Stryker battalion as Kirkland and deployed with him to Iraq in 2007, though they weren’t friends and didn’t know each other well.

Since he left the Army earlier this year, Baker has persistently pointed to Kirkland’s death as a sign of the Army failing to care for someone who repeatedly showed signs of psychological distress. He now lives in Southern California and is active in anti-war groups.

He’s especially outraged about Kirkland’s death because he overheard other soldiers calling Kirkland a “coward” while Baker served in the brigade’s rear detachment last year.

“There’s definitely a stigma in the military,” Baker said. “The chain of command will openly say if you have problems you should seek help, but that blankets over the reality of it.”

His suggestion stings for the mental health professionals working to prevent suicides and treat post-traumatic stress at the West Coast’s largest military installation. They insist that the doors are open for soldiers who want to talk through their pain.

“A soldier’s place to die is on the battlefield. It’s terrible to lose one at home,” said retired Col. Jerome Penner, who led Madigan before leaving for a civilian post in Kentucky two months ago. “You lose one back here, we just beat ourselves up for it.”

Penner spoke to The News Tribune about mental health programs in general, not about Kirkland’s death.

NO CLEAR REASONS

The Army over the past five years has worked exhaustively to curb suicides among active-duty soldiers. They peaked two years ago, when 162 active-duty soldiers took their own lives.

Through that push, the Army learned that there isn’t a clear reason behind the surge in suicides. It recognizes that repeated deployments stress military families, but finds that suicide victims tend to be soldiers with one or fewer combat deployments behind them. Troubled relationships and substance abuse also contribute to suicides, the Army found.

“The fact is soldiers new to the military who’ve never deployed can have a lot of issues, so I don’t think there’s one category,” said Daniel Christensen, chief of a drop-in mental health clinic at Madigan.

He said people respond to traumatic events differently. Some develop acute stress disorders from seeing heavy combat; others suffer from the emotional turmoil caused by spending a year or more away from their families.

Police reports from the soldier suicides that took place in Lakewood last year reflect the complexity of the distress that can push a soldier to the brink. Two killed themselves in private, leaving no signs of what led them to take their lives.

One soldier in April 2010 shot himself in front of his wife during his leave from his deployment in Afghanistan. The soldier had been drinking and arguing with his mother over the phone just before he killed himself, according to the police report. He had spoken to his wife about having problems with the military.

Lewis-McChord’s two high-profile public suicides in the past year also revealed a combination of work and personal struggles.

Barrett, the Lewis-McChord soldier who died in a gunfight with Salt Lake City police, reportedly was disturbed by his recent deployment to Afghanistan with the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, according to an Army report obtained by the Arizona Daily Star.

The Army hasn’t yet released its investigation into Stewart’s April death. A Thurston County coroner report concluded that he and his wife were using “bath salts,” a designer drug that gives users a high similar to cocaine or methamphetamine. The medic had served in Iraq twice, most recently in 2009.

GETTING THE RIGHT HELP

While Madigan doctors are determined to help troubled soldiers, sometimes service members seeking counseling can’t find the right person.

One specialist from the 4th Brigade said his 2009-10 tour in Iraq left him disillusioned with the Army. He felt the mission lacked purpose and he was angered by soldiers in his platoon who bullied subordinates. He spoke with The News Tribune on condition of anonymity because he continues to serve in the brigade and fears professional repercussions.

As he got settled in his stateside life, the soldier said he had trouble sleeping and continued to feel anger at platoon mates.

He sought help at a Madigan sleep clinic and became frustrated by counselors who didn’t seem to understand his experiences on a combat deployment. He also felt the effort to care for soldiers was insincere, as if the counselors were trying “to check a box.”

“You sit down and start talking to this person because you think they’re going to help you or put you in touch with someone who can, when really all they’re going to say is ‘Here’s this list of phone numbers.’ ”

The soldier said he kept trying with different therapists over six months before finding one he trusted. He said he’s making progress now, but it would’ve been easy to give up after sitting through unhelpful seminars and failing to connect with Madigan’s behavioral health staff.

“If something was really, really wrong with me, I could’ve fallen through the cracks. They should take you from Point A to Point B” to make sure soldiers see someone who can help them, he said.

His fellow 4th Brigade soldier, Derrick Kirkland, did fall through the cracks.

'I'LL KEEP PRETENDING'

Kirkland lived with anguish at home and on the battlefield, according to his mother and the Army’s assessment of his health when he arrived at Madigan.

Corkhill Kirkland said her son joined the Army at age 20 to support his young family. When he spoke with an officer at Lewis-McChord in the days before he killed himself, he admitted to abusing drugs as a young man. The Army helped him break that dependence, Kirkland told the officer.

His mother said Kirkland was proud of serving and wore his uniform whenever he went home to Indiana.

“He was a jokester,” Corkhill Kirkland said. “He always tried to make people laugh. He was very sensitive but tried to play the tough guy. He did love his country.”

Kirkland deployed to Iraq with the 4th Brigade in 2007-08, during a period of heavy fighting. Corkhill Kirkland noticed he seemed distressed by some experiences, such as when he shot at an Iraqi car that surprised him during a night watch.

“Mom, I’m a murderer, I actually had to kill people,” he told her.

She tried to comfort him. “ ‘Well, Derrick it was the war, and it was probably you or them,’ ” she remembered saying.

Kirkland’s marriage was on the rocks when he went back to Iraq in September 2009 with the 4th Brigade, his mother said. Army records show he tried to kill himself February 10, 2010, and started using behavioral health services that month. He called himself a failure because his marriage was ending. He made a second attempt to take his life in early March and was evacuated to Germany.

He arrived at Madigan on March 13, and doctors at Madigan knew about Kirkland’s suicide attempts in Iraq. They noted that he appeared focused on his future when they spoke with him. It appeared to them that Kirkland had come to terms with a decision to end his marriage, and that he was looking forward to being a part of his daughter’s life.

“He expressed being future-oriented, motivated by his desire to be present to his daughter,” reads Kirkland’s mental status evaluation from March 15, 2010.

Kirkland went to the barracks and showed mixed feelings about his health, according to an Army Criminal Investigative Division report that The News Tribune obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request.

In conversations, he often shifted between dwelling on his failing marriage or perking up while talking about his daughter.

“I’ll keep pretending to be a stable person,” he wrote on a friend’s Facebook page, according to the Army investigation.

An investigator found that Kirkland tried to kill himself a third time the night of March 18 by cutting his arms, taking pills and drinking alcohol. He survived and made it to his morning formation the next day, where no one noticed his bandages. He died sometime the night of March 19.

CHANGES NEEDED

Corkhill Kirkland believes her son needed more consistent attention once he arrived at Madigan. The 5-foot-4-inch soldier weighed 110 pounds, down from his usual 125 pounds.

“They should’ve kept him in a hospital,” she said.

A sergeant who spoke with Army investigators last year held the same opinion. The sergeant – whose name was concealed in records provided to The News Tribune – told investigators he was assigned to keep watch on Kirkland in February 2010 around the time of his first suicide attempt.

The sergeant said Kirkland appeared to leave Iraq on a path toward getting help that would keep him alive.

“I really believe had they done a better job taking him seriously, then this would have never happened,” the sergeant said. “When he had help, he was doing fine, but when he got back to the U.S. and the help wasn’t there and he was left alone, he felt like no one cared. He shouldn’t have been left alone.”

Lewis-McChord soldiers who spoke with an investigating officer reported that no one told them Kirkland had twice tried to kill himself when he arrived at their unit. They thought Kirkland would spend more time at Madigan’s Warrior Transition Battalion under constant watch before joining them.

“When Spc. Kirkland arrived to his unit, he should not have been assigned a room by himself and routine checks should have been established,” the officer wrote in the death investigation completed in March. “Ensuring Spc. Kirkland felt that he had support through the whole process needed to be emphasized to leave no doubt that the soldier was a priority to his unit and the Army.”

Corkhill Kirkland fears that other military moms will suffer a loss like hers if the Army doesn’t adopt more strict policies to standardize treatment of soldiers showing signs of emotional distress.

“When they come back, I don’t care how much they try to convince you they’re OK,” she said, “don’t leave them alone for 30 days.”

Adam Ashton: 253-597-8646

adam.ashton@thenewstribune.com

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