Almost once every hour a U.S. military veteran takes his or her life. The Department of Veterans Affairs reports that , on average.
Austin veteran Andrew O鈥橞rien almost become one of them. He survived a suicide attempt in 2010, after returning from a 12-month deployment to Iraq. Now he鈥檚 telling his story to raise awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder and military suicides.
We spoke with O鈥橞rien about how the deaths of fellow soldiers and lack of help from the military led up to his attempt.
I just stopped talking about it, and I just pushed it down and pushed it down, and then a couple of months later, in November of 2010, I just decided I was done, I was tired of pushing it down, I was tired of not being able to talk about it and open up about it and feeling ashamed for feeling the way I did.
You can hear the full conversation by clicking the player above.
