As I mentioned in my last post, the suicide of SSG Amy Tirador has stayed with me for years after it occurred, which I suspect is normal for anyone in my situation. But what happened on the day of the incident? What was my reaction? Here's what I can recall, with some help from my daily notes:
The day started off normal enough on COP COBRA. November 4th was a Wednesday which meant there was the standard Commander Update Brief in the late afternoon/early evening and the weekly Brigade Intel Synch at 1400 over Adobe Connect or something similar...essentially a briefing done over the computer. There was also a Decision Brief at 0930, which I think had something to do with the upcoming checkpoint mission, or possibly elections which I believe were originally scheduled for January or February but were later pushed to March. It doesn't really matter, we were always doing some kind of brief that required time, energy, and several PowerPoint slides.
SSG Tirador's body was found some time in the morning, but I don't recall exactly what time. In my notes I have the Decision Brief checked off which means it got done...the CUB is crossed out, the commander definitely canceled that. I have no idea when the squadron commander was informed of the situation but I was told about 1345-1350, right before the Intel Synch.
The S3 (operations officer) came into the office that I shared with the Fire Support Officer, one of the assistant S3s, and a few others and told me he had to talk to me. This was extremely unusual and I immediately thought I was in some kind of trouble, as did the FSO who asked what I had done wrong. Despite what every SOP and doctrine manual says, the S3 and I did not work that closely with each other. He was standoffish, a grump, difficult to talk to, and I don't think very bright; so getting called into his office had me very much on edge. He told me to sit down and then said something along the lines of, "there's not good way to say this so I'm just going to say it. SSG Tirador was found dead this morning. It was suicide."
I appreciated him being straightforward.
The next several minutes are not very clear. I remember starting to cry and not giving a shit. The S3 handed me a bottle of water and a tissue. At some point he had the ops NCO get the chaplain who only had enough time to give me a look of sympathy and a brief hug of support before the call came to send him down to FOB CALDWELL where he was needed more. As I watched him run out the door I had a brief thought of extreme selfishness...I wanted to chaplain to stay. It's a 2 hour drive between Cobra and Caldwell, the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) made the trip in a little over an hour.
After composing myself I walked back into my office where of course the FSO and AS3 wanted to know what was wrong and how much trouble I was in. I tried my damndest to brush away their questions and say everything was ok, I didn't want to just announce we had lost a soldier, especially since there were junior enlisted soldiers within hearing distance. But I couldn't lie to these guys and they deserved to know. I told them the truth, and then went for a walk.
Of course by now the Intel Synch had started, but I didn't care. The way it was sent up I knew I had 40 minutes or so before my portion to brief would begin anyway. I wandered around the COP for a time mostly wondering what the fuck went wrong, the entire deployment seemed to be collapsing around me and my self doubts were firing on all cylinders. Was this my fault? How bad of a leader was I to lose a soldier like this? Could I have prevented this in any way? I found myself sitting on top of the dirt berm that separated the COP from Iraq. I looked out at the town of Jalula and just stared for awhile. I'm pretty sure I contemplated just walking off the COP to go looking for trouble. I don't think I would have gotten very far and the 10 rounds I had for my M9 wouldn't have done much good anyway.
Eventually I found myself back at my computer and ignoring the stares of my coworkers as I signed back into the Intel Synch. I had come back just in time to give my portion of the briefing which I gave in my usual professional manner as if nothing at all was wrong. As I wrapped up it took more self discipline than I knew I had to keep from mentioning our loss; it wasn't the time or the place.
The rest of the day is blank for me, other than a phone call I received from the squadron XO. He only called when someone on staff had not done something perfectly and this was no exception. The XO discussed for several minutes about some product that wasn't up to his standard, or something along those lines. As you can imagine I didn't have a lot of "give-a-damn" at the moment. After multiple "yes sir's" and "of course, sir's" he finally stopped and then asked me how I was doing. Fuck you man. Don't chew on my ass about a PowerPoint slide and then try to be some kind of grief counselor, I don't respect you enough for that.
There's a note I made to myself the next day in reference to having to replace Amy: "The phone call I don't want to make. The conversation I don't want to have...They don't train you for this."
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