Casualty Of War

Master Sergeant James Coons, of Conroe, was a decorated soldier who served his country for seventeen years. But when the horrors of battle took their toll, the Army he loved so dearly left him all alone to fight his demons.

by Skip Hollandsworth

March 2006

(Page 3 of 4)

It was obvious that his mind was continuing to misfire. He admitted to the hospital’s staff that he was still seeing the young soldier’s face. He also admitted that on those occasions when he was able to see his own face in the mirror, he would find himself studying it, focusing on what he said were blemishes on his skin.

On June 21, he was shipped to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, in Germany, the Army hospital where all wounded soldiers from Iraq are sent. A soldier there who met Coons said that he was acting “very strange . . . [He] would begin a conversation [and] then would jump to another subject and then back again to the original. He also would keep conversations going once you ended it and walked away.” According to the soldier, Coons did not mention his mental breakdown. Instead, he’d made up a story that he was being sent home because he had used too much force while interrogating a suspected insurgent.

But a Landstuhl psychiatrist who evaluated Coons noted in his report that the master sergeant maintained a “professional demeanor.” He added that Coons’s “risk for suicide is assessed as low”—a startling conclusion considering the Neurontin overdose just four days earlier.

Perhaps the doctor believed that Coons would find some semblance of normality once he returned home to his family. Perhaps he believed that all soldiers suffer some sort of emotional trauma during wartime and that little could be done about it. Or perhaps the doctor, overwhelmed by the number of soldiers coming in each day to Landstuhl, simply had little time to evaluate Coons.

By then, about three months after the invasion of Baghdad, it was becoming clear to military experts that this war—with its close-up urban warfare, the elusiveness of the insurgents, the constant threat of roadside bombs, the mutilated bodies, and the high number of civilian killings—had become the perfect breeding ground for mental health problems in soldiers. Surveys taken of the first wave of troops leaving Iraq were already indicating that a fifth of the soldiers qualified as having “moderate or severe” mental health problems—a totally unexpected number.

It is quite possible that for all the questions surrounding Coons’s condition, the psychiatrist felt obligated to focus his attention on his most severe cases. So he arranged for Coons to receive outpatient care upon his return to the United States, and papers were signed for Coons to be put on a military airplane and flown with other wounded soldiers to the 260-bed Walter Reed hospital. Before leaving Germany, Coons called Robin and told her he would be at Walter Reed for only a few days of “follow-up” counseling and that he would be back in Texas by early July. There was no need for her to come see him, he said.

Wearing his uniform, he arrived at Walter Reed in the early morning hours of June 29 and met with a third-year resident in one of the hospital’s locked psychiatric wards. In his report, the resident made note of Coons’s excellent grooming and “appropriate military bearing.” He noted that Coons acted “surprised” to be in a psych ward and that he adamantly insisted that he had had no suicidal thoughts. But the resident may have been overwhelmed by the influx of patients. Press accounts from 2003 reported that the members of Walter Reed’s medical staff were working seventy- to eighty-hour weeks. The resident quickly released Coons to a room at the Mologne House, a hotel on the Walter Reed campus for visiting families and soldiers undergoing outpatient treatment, and told him to report the next morning to the outpatient mental health clinic.

A CLERK AT THE MOLOGNE HOUSE gave him a key to room 179, and for the first time since his overdose on June 17, Coons found himself alone. He put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and locked it. He only partially unpacked his belongings. He made no telephone calls. Apparently, he picked up a Bible and turned to the Book of Psalms, placing a bookmark at a psalm in which the writer asked God to release the demons inside him.

He did not appear the next morning for his appointment at the mental health clinic. No one from the clinic or the Mologne House came by to check on him. Seeing the Do Not Disturb sign, the hotel’s maids moved on to the next room.

Later that day, Robin called the hospital, but when she was connected to his room, he did not answer. Both Robin and Carol called the next day. Again, no answer. And again, no one went looking for him.

One can only guess what was happening to him. Maybe Coons was feeling good about himself after convincing the young resident that he did not belong in the psych ward. Maybe he was still telling himself that all great soldiers should be able to overcome any adversity. Maybe he still believed that he could get through his suffering alone, soothed only by a passage or two from the Bible.

Or maybe he walked into the hotel room, looked into the bathroom mirror, and again saw the soldier’s face, the skin blistered with burns. Maybe he stood there for a few moments, realizing that the face would never leave him. Maybe, after another sleepless night, he decided that it would be unfair to bring the face back to Texas, back to his beautiful wife and children.

ON JULY 2, ROBIN CALLED THE MOLOGNE HOUSE several times, leaving messages on the voice mail for room 179. She spoke to a clerk at the front desk, asking if anyone had seen her husband. She called the chaplain’s office and asked a chaplain to check on Coons. Robin said to the woman, “I just want you to knock on his door and say, ‘Master Sergeant Coons, are you okay?’” But, according to Robin, the chaplain replied that because of Coons’s rank, she didn’t have the authority to, as she put it, “get into his business.”

“You mean you’d go check on a young soldier, but you won’t check on an older soldier who’s given seventeen years of his life to his country?” Robin asked.

“I’ll see what I can do,” the chaplain said. But Robin says she never heard from her again.

On July 3, Carol called the hospital’s security desk and asked one of the police officers to look for her son. He too said he would be in touch.

But more hours passed. On July 4, at two-fifteen in the morning, a tearful Robin called the desk clerk at the Mologne House. “All I want to know is if anyone has seen him,” she said. “Maybe he’s left the hospital and is headed home. Can’t you just open the door to his room and see if his suitcase is still there?”

According to his original orders, Coons was supposed to be home by July 4, Independence Day. Robin, Carol, and Richard had planned a welcome-home party, and although they had not heard from him, they decided to go ahead and decorate the house, hoping he might suddenly appear. They planted American flags in the front yard. They spent a couple hundred dollars on beer and barbecue. Robin put together red-white-and-blue outfits for her and the girls to wear.

But he did not arrive, and he did not call.

“My God, he’s been missing for four days,” Robin said to another clerk at the Mologne House. “Please look for him! Please!”

At 5:59 on the morning of July 5, she heard her doorbell ring. She slipped out of bed—her two girls were still asleep beside her—walked to the front door, and looked through the peephole. She saw a red U.S. Army beret. Her heart began pounding. “He’s home!” she screamed and opened the door. “It’s James!”

But it wasn’t her husband. Wearing the beret was an officer from Fort Hood. Beside him was an Army chaplain. “Mrs. Coons, may we come in?” the officer said.

She sagged against the door.

“Mrs. Coons, may we come in?” the officer said again.

“No, not until you tell me everything is okay with my husband.”

There was silence. “We can’t tell you that, Mrs. Coons. I’m sorry. We can’t tell you that.”

THEY DID NOT TELL HER HOW HE HAD DIED. They did not tell her that an employee on the night shift had finally gotten a key, opened the door to her husband’s room at four o’clock in the morning on July 4, and found the master sergeant hanging from a white bedsheet that was wrapped around his neck and then tied to an exposed water pipe in the ceiling.

They simply told Robin that Coons had passed away at Walter Reed. When she asked if he had suffered a heart attack or a stroke, they said they did not know. A casualty officer later arrived from Fort Hood to help Robin plan the funeral, but she told him that Coons had already taken care of that. Friends were also stopping by. Many of them had not heard the news and were expecting to see Coons himself, thinking he was home.

His body arrived in Houston on July 11 and was taken to a funeral home in Conroe. Only then did the casualty officer take the family aside and provide details about the hanging. Robin became hysterical. “And no one once went to check on him!” she screamed, the sound of her voice echoing through the funeral home. “Not once!”

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