She leaned out of the tent at a small-town summer festival, hoping someone would stop to ask about her tattoos, her T-shirt, the framed pictures of her son on a table in the back of the booth.
Rohde runs the most active chapter of a nonprofit called Mission 22, aimed at ending the scourge of military and veteran suicide, which kills thousands every year, at a rate far higher than the general population. Three-quarters of those who take their own lives use guns.Judge orders federal agents to stop cutting Texas razor wire for now at busy Mexico border crossing
She tells her story to anyone who will listen: She had been worried about her son. Most of his left hand had been blown off in a training accident. He told his mom he didn’t know if he could continue his military career, and all he’d ever wanted to be was a soldier. He asked for his guns, which she had been holding. She’d hesitated. But they were his, and this is Texas.
“I’m glad I didn’t have a gun. Because if I would have had a gun, I believe I’d have finished the job. I need to be here, I still have a lot to do,” she said.Barbie Rohde is a conservative, a devoted fan of Trump. She doesn’t like phrases like “gun control” and doesn’t believe in mandated gun restrictions. But something more needs to be done, she thinks.
Experts say that traumatic experiences at war play a role in veterans having a suicide rate 1.5 times higher than others. Yet even those with no combat history die by suicide at a much higher rate. What they have in common, researchers say, is demographics that are especially vulnerable to suicide: predominately white men with access to and a familiarity with firearms.
The biggest misconception, Bryan said, is that guns aren’t the problem. If someone doesn’t have a gun, people assume, they will find another way to end their life. That’s why Barbie Rohde sneaks gun locks into her customers’ bags. A representative from the VA told her that they met a soldier who had decided to end her life and went for her gun. But it was locked. By the time she found the key, the impulse passed. She decided to stay alive, and the military officers did not have to knock on her parents’ door to repeat the horrible script Rohde endured.