Negotiating the bend of the road - as in life - even at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, circa 2002, required soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines to lend a hand to those in need. Noted actor and comedian Robin Williams toured and visited the region that winter, sharing his gift of comedy to those a long way from home. Classic Williams: “We’re here at the third hole of the Afghan Open,” he shared in a television golf announcer’s muted tone to his military audience. “We can’t play the tenth hole, because it’s still mined.” Several days after Thanksgiving that November, there was the inaugural Mine Field Marathon at Bagram. Perhaps the course coordinators were channeling their inner-Robin Williams. Instead of a traditional starter's pistol or air horn to commence the run, they detonated – you guessed it – a land mine to begin the run. A dozen years later, Williams took his life. A half-dozen year later, as Navy Medicine recognizes September as Suicide Prevention Month, we still reflect on the loss of Williams that year. Along with too many of us, at too many commands, remembering someone lost this year, as well as lamenting the hundreds of other America’s soldiers, Sailors, airmen, and Marines gone in the same solemn span of time. When Williams was pronounced dead by suicide, the loss of such an enormous talent and ardent supporter of our military was felt by many who thought they had just lost a shipmate, because in a way they had. When many of us found out that someone we actually knew – not some abstract statistic or some unknown individual - took their own life, we were simultaneously stunned, shocked, and saddened, because we just lost that shipmate.
| Date Taken: | 03.13.2003 |
| Date Posted: | 09.30.2019 16:33 |
| Photo ID: | 5798680 |
| VIRIN: | 030313-N-HU933-007 |
| Resolution: | 1200x782 |
| Size: | 821.05 KB |
| Location: | BREMERTON, WA, US |
| Web Views: | 43 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, More than a statistic – Suicide takes a toll, by Douglas Stutz, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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