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Brian Rand
US Soldier Who Killed Himself After Being Sent to Iraq
If you know anyone who writes about or speaks about emotional intelligence, please ask them to read the article below and think about the most popular definitions of emotional intelligence. Please ask them to think about whether people who are trained to be soldiers, then kill themeselves after they have killed someone else (because they have been taught to obey, to be patriotic, and to believe that it is their "job", "duty" to "kill the enemy"), are lacking in emotional intelligence, or, whether their suicide might be more a function of their upbringing, education and environment.
It hurts me to think that people like Jack Mayer, Peter Salovey and David Caruso might say that Brian Rand killed himself because he lacked emotional intelligence.
Instead, I believe his emotional intelligence caused him to feel intense pain. Had he been surrounded by people who opposed killing, supported apologizing and making restitution, as well as asking forgiveness, and people who believe in helping others and in love, empathy and understanding rather than people who believed in hurting, punishing and killing others, I suspect his life could have been saved. If he had been surrounded by people who validated him and helped him express his feelings and then asked him what would help him feel better, then supported him in doing that, rather than prescribing pills to him, I believe he would still be with us.
I believe there is a good chance he would have gone to schools and spoken out against war and killing. I believe the world lost a sensitive, caring, emotionally intelligent person who could have done a lot of good for humanity.
If you are sincerely interested in the topic of emotional intelligence, please read what I have written about suicide, about soldiers and about the Mayer, Salovey, Caruso definition. I have written many articles. I feel too weak myself to find the now and show you the links. I get too depressed myself when I think about what is happening in America and what people who are conditioned to be patriotic Americans are doing in Iraq and in the schools and in the churches and businesses in America.
I don't have the energy to try to convert anyone to my ways of thinking. But I ask you to please read what I have written. Please make the time. My heart tells me it is important. My feelings tell me. I cried when I read the story about Brian. I cried when I read what his sister said. I cried when I think about her losing him forever thanks to the decisions of people like George Bush and his super rich friends from Texas.
Now the government will be trying to deny things and cover things up. Like the fact that it was recommended he not return to Iraq. Who really cared about Brian Rand? Can the US government be trusted to care about anyone if they don't even care about their soldiers? Can they be trusted to care about the children and teenagers in their state controlled schools? Can any government really be trusted to care about people they are have power over?
It saddens me deeply and depresses me to see what is happening in the US, and in England, where a teenagers who dress differently have been beat and killed. (Read about Sophie Lancaster)
I have to keep my distance from things connected with the USA and England. I have to spend more time and mental energy thinking about things I can make a difference with now. With children I can see the results from one day to the next. That is one day I like working with them.
I am making a little progress on some projects here in Europe. If you are interested, you can read more on this link which I created to help me find some volunteers and interns here.
S. Hein
May 28, 2008
Budapest
Afterthought - In previous writings I suggested you could not really have an "emotionally intelligent soldier". Now I might say that Brian was one example of one. But now he can only be called an emotionally intelligent... dead... soldier.
From http://www.kansascity.com/440/story/635463-p2.html
Handout courtesy of family Since the start of the Iraq war, Fort Campbell, a sprawling installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, has seen a spike in the number of suicides and soldiers suffering from severe post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Sgt. Brian Rand, shown here grilling chicken in Iraq, killed himself a few months after being discharged from his second tour of duty in Iraq. Rand believe he was being haunted by the ghost of the Iraqi man he killed.
For a while Sgt. Brian Rand enjoyed being assigned to Fort Campbell and working as a helicopter mechanic.
But that was before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the War on Terror.
Before Iraq.
As the war dragged on and Rand was sent first to Kuwait, then Iraq, he told family members that he felt torn about the things he saw.
Once while wounded soldiers were being evacuated by helicopter in the Green Zone in central Baghdad, Rand waved at a man he knew. The man turned and Brian saw that half of the man's face was ripped off.
Brian later told his sister he was shocked by how white the bones looked under the flesh.
Then one day, while standing guard near the Green Zone, Rand killed an Iraqi man.
"The spirit of the man that he killed didn't leave him, it kept harassing him," Somdahl said of her brother. "He said this guy is following me around in the mess hall, he's trying to kill me. I told him to leave me alone but he says he wants to take me with him.'"
To help ease his nightly terrors, April would log onto her computer and talk to her brother over the Internet until he fell asleep.
She ended every conversation the same way.
"Sleep well, baby boy. Tomorrow is a new day."
But when he returned from Iraq in 2005, Brian Rand was a different man.
His voice was distant. His jokes were morbid. He moved as if trapped in a nightmare.
At his family's behest, he finally sought counseling at a hospital near Fort Campbell. He later told his sister the waiting room was full of soldiers who went in for 10-minute visits with a psychiatrist and came out with prescriptions for pills.
The psychiatrist spent nearly two hours with him and wrote an evaluation that suggested he not return to battle, Somdahl said. But that paperwork never made it to his commanding officer. That Sunday, Rand was told his unit was deploying back to Iraq.
His widow, Dena, said the military told her it has no record of the psychiatrist's recommendation that he not redeploy to a combat zone or any record of requests during his first tour of duty for a mental evaluation.
Months after he returned to Iraq in November 2005, Rand picked up a fork, stabbed a fellow soldier in the neck in the mess hall, then crawled into the fetal position and sobbed. The soldiers in Rand's unit picked him up and carried him over to a phone, dialed his sister and placed the phone to his ear.
"I asked why did you do that?" Somdahl said. "He said I thought I was a vampire. I said, you're going to get a punishment, but maybe they'll let you come home."
They didn't, at least not right away.
When he did return in August 2006, he answered "yes" to questions on a post-deployment health assessment form that asked if he was having nightmares, mood swings and felt hopeless, according to his wife, who has copies of his medical paperwork.
But his demons followed him home.
"He wanted to hibernate with me, he started to be more clingy," Dena Rand said. "One day he got upset and he started punching himself and gave himself a black eye. He went to formation with that black eye."
Eventually Rand's thoughts turned to death.
"He had a rifle that his wife bought for him," his mother said. "He had been rehearsing (the suicide) by putting it to his mouth and threatening his wife that he would do it. I asked him if he was serious, he said no."
He also became increasingly violent toward his pregnant wife, and his stepdaughter once had to call the police.
"He was very remorseful about that," Dena Rand said.
Weeks later, his body was found steps from the place where he and his wife married.