Veterans Banning Together to Combat Suicide- Enterprise Show and Share

By Cheyanne Reyome

Within the contents of the New York Times website lies an article entitled “In Unit Stalked by Suicide, Veterans Try to Save One Another” by Dave Phillips. I stumbled upon this piece after looking through articles about veterans on the New York Times site and the title stuck out to me. I chose this specific article because I was interested in learning about how veterans were helping each other and creating a system that focused on depleting the number of service members who commit suicide.

After reading the piece, I personally appreciated the vulnerability that was communicated to the reader via the way Phillips chose to write about the veterans he interviewed and spent time with. He effectively communicated their struggles without creating a sense of pity, Phillips also managed to break through the “tough, heroic” stereotype that comes to mind when people think of a Marine or Soldier, and instead the reader was able to see the vulnerable human side to these individuals.

This article proves to be good journalism because it touched on a prominent subject, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, and suicide within armed forces platoons, while going at the issue from a different angle. Phillips focused on sharing the personal struggles and experiences of several Marines that evoke emotion from the audience. Phillips story does more than recite statistics and show a problem, it illustrates a brotherhood that is committed to helping its fellow members conquer the darkest times of their lives.