He shot himself before the Battle of the Bulge so that would not have been a specific cause.

reminds me of the ballad of the green berets guy who got shot in a cab in south america or the guy that hoover killed Melvin Purvis

I didn’t know this

I like the shorts. Keep them coming.

So you DID answer a question from the comments!

It was either that or die on the beach. Jumping was safer. Anyone with half a brain and access to intel on the German defenses knew that beach landing was a suicide mission.

he could have also screwed up massively and become an embarrassment to the paratroopers. Preparation is key.

Little known that an entire battalion of the 101st came across to France by boat.

Airborne training: Fall down. Don't drop weapon.

This was my thought when he said he jumped without any training. 100% Respect.

I wonder what the suicide rates were during WW1 and WW2. Those are the best kept secrets of both wars since there's rarely mention of it.

Or, are seen.

I was unprepared and broke down when I read this. I hope you will never know why.

@@Lord.Kiltridge Those who know, know why.

Combat related PTSD has existed as long as combat. It just didn't have a name.

Media always portrays them as fearless Rambo super-soldiers. In reality, their fear is what kept them alive.

Bravery is the overcoming of fear. The absence of fear is usually ignorance or mental illness.

People have done heroic things in battle without realizing it or sometimes even remembering it. It seems everyone experiences bravery a little differently.

Normal people have fear. Sociopaths ignore it and Psychopaths don't feel it.

@@SidneyBroadshead People are animals that become conditioned to stimuli. Just because some people are better than adapting than you are, it doesn't mean they don't have access to certain emotions.

Lot of crazy things happened 39-45

Yeah, and required large balls. Balls so large that they likely needed their own parachute.

"Hey yeah so we are just about to do the largest amphibious invasion in history in the largest war in the history. No pressure. Jump!"

​@@diegrinder6851Always with the balls, you people.

@@paddyret7968 yes

Maybe he got a brain injury during one of those jumps? Since all I know on the subject is that alcoholism could be a cause of depression. Or hell maybe the man just snapped after too much war?

@@owenhammond1880 The nature of brain injuries is still not fully known. Seemingly minor bumps can lead to fatal damage. I would not be surprised, but we simply don't know if he was dealing with any other issues.

Spot on, they had no idea about CTE or post concussion syndrome, hell we barely know how to treat it in 2024.

​​@@BrorealeK He fought during WW2, PTSD isn't something to be outruled either.

@@owenhammond1880 it could also be chronic stress. To high level of stress hormones in the brain gives symptoms as migraine, lack of sleep, reduced memory, reduced concentration, lowered judgement. After months to years, three months and above it can give irreversible brain damage.

That's the idea! Thanks for the comment.

Its refreshing to see this format actually being done right. There's too many lazy "Historical fact" shorts that are done by AI and just flat-out inaccurate.

​@@WorldWarTwo Some suicides aren't actually suicides. Have you done anything on General Maxwell (the highest ranking US officer killed during World War II)? It would be interesting to see what you come up with.

@@dennisvazquez2140 General Simon B. Buckner Jr. & General Lesley J. McNair were two 3-star generals posthumously promoted to 4-star after both dying during combat. Bruckner or McNair, one or other, was the highest ranked officer depending on source. Bruckner was killed by enemy artillery while in command of all forces ashore at Okinawa. McNair was Army Ground Forces commander (oversaw all army training, his command peaked at 2.2 million in '43), died at the Battle of St. Lo from friendly fire. Couldn't pin down a Gen. Maxwell that died in WW2, would like to learn of his story.

I thought Patton was the highest ranked Death?

Wow. The Pacific island campaigns. Massive respect. I never really appreciated what those guys went thru until my brother and I bought a deep sea fishing charter. As we were preparing to leave several hours before dawn, I was shocked to see a group of old men loading coolers and fishing gear into the ship. I had some fierce words with the captain, as I had expected this to be our private charter, but the old men were coming with us - all day. We soon learned these guys were all Marines from WWII - the Pacific Island campaigns. They smoked and drank beer the whole day. The. Whole. Day. They never got seasick, even when chopping up raw fish for bait. They talked non-stop, remembering by name each of their lost friends, including brutal descriptions of how they had been killed. They told us they stuck together as, if they tried to cope with what they had been thru alone they would have gone nuts. That was 1996. Tough group of guys. I will never forget that day, or those guys. Amazing education. Horrifying stuff indeed.

Sharp Navy salute to your combat hardened uncle. Have you requested his records? It would be enlightening. My uncle is POW/MIA from combat in Pacific Theater, and my father was a combat medic in same area. Their records were ... heartbreaking.

@@ax2usn No sir, I haven't.

My father-in-law was 40 and Jewish when he signed up for World War II because he wanted to go to Germany and kill Nazis. But they sent him to Japan. He brought home a sword from a man that he had killed in Japan and for the rest of his life he carried the man’s picture of his wife and child that was in his wallet.

​@@dejablue5746 A very decent man. May he rest in the bosom of Abraham & may the two of them be friends in the beyond. 🌟

That kind of shelling for that long, wow. Bet there was brain injury.

Well, they're already demonitized and age restricted, so no real "sacrifice" is being made by saying suicide.

I loath that "second hand" for kids only jargon that KZfaq enforces. Sam with all the blurry screens.

The reason why suicide isn't talked about openly, at least in the mainstream media, is because it can encourage people who are on the verge of taking their lives to do the same... at least that's the case in Australia. Decades ago, it was noticed that when a prominent persons suicide was reported, there was an increase in the overall suicide numbers. It's a difficult subject to broach.

In today's electronic world, words--either spoken or written-- can be detected, and the site can do several possible actions against the channel, and demonetization is probably the least of these things.

​@@castleanthrax1833that may be, but my honest question to whoever did these studies, is whether reading "unalived" is any better?

He could have gotten a dear John letter

@@decimated550 my thoughts exactly!

@@ms.sherlock I read a book on the Vietnam war when I was young, just memoirs of soldiers experiences, and one guy opened his mail. Read it, and later that day he just got up from his position and walked towards the NVA lines just trudging toward their lines . his fellow soldiers watched as he was shot down dead

@@decimated550 My husband was a Vietnam vet, field first sergeant- he had PTSD - a lot of anger issues. Sad.

Seemed he really cared about his men. And country. So maybe his spouse or liver too. Yeah. You go through all that thinking this is what I’m doing this for and then get a letter like that. It would be devastating.

You need to write this story up at length.

And with that on record, nobody will hire you. The vets just stuck together the best they could after the war, quietly.

​@@RW4X4X3006cheap beer at the VFW

And in the 80's and 90's it was still the norm. Probably still is.

@@jad43701 The PR campaigns on PTSD over the past 20 years has society thinking veterans are an insanity factory and a liability for the workplace.

@@jad43701 It's better than it was. Although, the thing that is hurting people now is all the misinformation about the red flag laws. People don't want to lose their basic 2A rights but are afraid that simply asking to talk to someone is going to get them banned. If one party wouldn't be so quick to try to grab everything from people and cause that confusion while we ensure it is ONLY if they are a threat to themselves or others, it might help too.

I know, they didn't answer the question. They just said it was suicide, which isn't an answer, why did he commit suicide

This channel seems to want to just clickbait, never giving the answer to the title. Weak

Its probably more productive to call it PTSD. Guilt is one of the many symptoms PTSD give and people with PTSD will experience a range of emotions that are hard to pin down like 'he feels guilty being a survivor.' Its more productive to say he went through extreme trauma and was at risk of a number of symptoms including guilt. For me PTSD has resulted in depression and sleeping disorders, but not guilt.

@@BobHooker well I say this specifically because he's a military officer on the field and such mental troubles plauge a lot of them to where they have sleepless nights questioning their decision making "could I have done it better? what if I did this would they have lived?" Stuff like that. Which leads to hesitancy or extreme guilt and reluctance to lead their men (as they think they will surely get them killed.) It's a hard balance because if you tilt too much the other way with over confidence you get Victory Disease which was common in WW2.

Yes, by all means. Let’s continue to perpetuate the softening and dumbing down of anything that might more truthfully describe what it is we’re trying to help confront and actually face from these experiences. These college psych committees who think that pretending things are less than and denying the reality of it somehow disguises what we feel so we can pretend some more instead of being honest with ourselves. When do we get back to learning coping skills for reality?

Survivor's guilt?? The war wasn't over yet so he still had a chance to die so why would he bother committing suicide 🙄????

@@user-bd3gt9jt1x because PTSD causes irrational self harm

That what a *combat* jump is. I think the point was supposed to be that his first jump was a combat jump

@@Ninja-Alinja *yeah, that’s my point*

As opposed to a combat jump into friendly lines?

@@_ArsNova no getting jump qualified first

So did most of them.

PTSD often involves guilt, but it has a wide range of symptoms and can result in a range of conditions that led to suicide.

Losing friends and loved ones is hard enough at the best of times and this was such extremely testing conditions, people talk today about stress but the stress of making decisions that determined the lives of thousands more men is a recipe for tragedy. You can't keep pushing people until they crack from the pressure.

@@Treblaine Indeed. These things stick around forever. I was speaking to a WW2 veteran the other week, over 100 now, and he said how clearly he felt and remembered his comrades, clear as if it was today. The pain of losing them lasts a lifetime

​@@Adonnus100it's crazy they're still alive

STOP IT. You don't deserve to speak of such a man. Go back to your games.

It wasn't hard to find a doctor who would have a "here, take this, it'll make you feel better" but with very little regard to the dangers of mixing with alcohol or chronic use, just an attitude of "well, it gave short term benefits, what else do you want?" I think Richard Winters had the right idea for the grunts at least, have them reassigned where the pressure is taken off them, even for a short time. People need time to mourn.

@@Treblaine agreed .

Yeah, I didn't realize until fairly recently how prevalent amphetamine usage was in WW2. I'm not sure about it's usage on the ground for the allies.

he may have actually been taking pain meds or something to deal with the shock of the landings. that may actually explain it.

Yeah he was probably playing Russian Roulette with a pistol.

I think the connotation is that suicide due to medical diagnosis (a virulent kind of cancer, for instance), was given a distinction separate from suicide for less tangible reasons. That's what I gathered, at least. It does track with the perceptions of the time period. If that were the case, I find it strange that he wouldn't wait until the end of the war, at least. Perhaps he was suffering from an illness from around the time of Market-Garden or even before until his death, and so due to a diagnosis he might be worried he'd be relieved of command. In that case, the war would be over for him anyway. This is conjecture of course, but to find out more we'd need recollections about him from those who worked around him - any enlisted personnel that worked in his HQ, his driver or drivers, that kind of individual. They would have seen how he carried himself, would know of there were any scuttlebutt about his health before he died. Perhaps his death was preceeded by a doctor or hospital visit. There might be records, but due to a massive fire in the 1970's it's just as likely there'd be no still-extant documentation. There's ways of piecing this together for someone who really wants to devote themselves to it. That's not gonna be my white whale, however.

Oh, also unless it's an accidental shooting - which happened absolutely all the time back then. Negligent discharges were just a fact of life. Can't really call that a suicide if the intent isn't there.

@@fuzzydunlop7928 Suicide is suicide irrespective of the reason and the choice of method.

He means that many (primarily military) sources vaguely reference him dying of "health issues" WITHOUT mentioning that he shot himself.

When I was undergoing training at the Surface Warfare School Detachment in San Diego in 1975, we were told that until recently when someone committed suicide a review was done to determine the state of mind of the person! If it was determined that he was sane at the time of his/her suicide his family would not be given any survivor benefits but if he was determined to be insane they would get survivor benefits.

They had some crude concept of shell shock which they knew very little about. Psychology had not advanced much beyond Freud. It has only been 25 years that the idea that combat could cause mental illness was adopted, before that it was considered just cowardness.

It's still not truly understood today. Much of what goes on inside our heads is a mystery.

@@castleanthrax1833 Somebody used the analogy of trying to understand the brain is like hanging a microphone in a full auditorium of people on game day and trying to listen to an individual conversation - occasionally your hear parts of a conversation and parts of another.

And Forrestal's.

Remember the Patton in Italy incident? Clearly not everybody shared that opinion.

That's sad, thank you for sharing that with us. -TimeGhost Ambassador

That makes me think they where all given some kind of info that didnt sit well with them whether that was new orders or a truth that was revealed we'll likely never know as i imagine the men who had that info have probly passed by now.

@@10Doomhawk My guess is undiagnosed and untreated PTSD. Major Dixon of the 506'th had issues with it, and was constantly drunk for a time, until Colonel Winters got him back and dried him out. He suffered tremendously, having been "in combat" quite often, but never firing a shot in anger or being wounded to prove his bravery - and he had (apparently) massive survivor's guilt over it. Given the dismal state of "mental health care" of the time, this seems to be the best theory, given other contemporary accounts of similar incidents. Colonel Millener would certainly fit the bill - he'd been in combat and done brave things, but HE was still there, whereas many men under him that he was "responsible" for, were not. If Major Dixon is any analogue at all, it fits like a glove. A very sad, unfortunate glove. Of course, one could cast aspersions as well. Anything from devastation Dear John letters, to improprieties occurring within the unit they were involved with, and accepted suicide over exposure. But, we have zero evidence of any of this, and very likely NEVER will, as all involved parties are deceased by this time, and eighty years has passed, obscuring or destroying any physical evidence that might remain.

@@calanon534 did you mean Captain Nixon?

Well, mental health *is* health, so they ain't lying

It is. PTSD has ruined my life.

@@badmanskill1112 I am relatively lucky in a sense. I just have trouble sleeping sometimes from having night terrors. Or I don't have a lot of patience dealing with some people. Other than that I can function pretty well compared to many others.

@@nasis18 Good to hear man. A lot of vets have unfortunately ended themselves due to PTSD. I wish there were better resources for vets but the military industrial complex wants all of it.

@@badmanskill1112 Yeah, we're used up and tossed to the side.

True. Some men in WWII spent three or more years as a P.O.W. of the Japanese (who generally allowed no letters, unlike the Red Cross in Germany) only to come home and find their wife had married someone else.

I'd think it was more likely that war was raging all around him and he had to see so many people die.

@@briskettacos he was a staff officer

@johnnytower6169 Hell's Hughway. Look it up. He wouldn't have been immune to death.

Thank you, we plan too!

It might have been worded differently. Killing one's self because of incurable health reasons rather than committing suicide because of mental health issues? Likewise, how does a gunshot happen any way other than "suddenly"?

He means that many (primarily military) sources vaguely reference him dying of "health issues" WITHOUT mentioning that he shot himself.

Patton was involved in a jeep accident. He ended up dying mysteriously when he was alone with a secret service agent. I believe he was assassinated

Patton died as the result of injuries sustained in a auto accident in immediate postwar Germany.

the 101st was based in Mourmelon-le-Grand and launched for Bastogne. The troops referred to the French town as "Bastogne Command" during the battle . Hence the paratroopers of the 101st asked each other why their chief of staff died just 11 days before they moved out.

Mine was there too, but recently the way things are being revealed, and the direction everything suddenly changed to, and even family behaving like an organized cartel of strangers with bad intentions, that maybe someone wasn't who they came home as. My poppa was Robert Meehan, and another relation disappeared on the Titanic too. Maybe no Meehan actually ever made it home.

Combat Fatigue was the official name. That replaced Shell Shock. Carlin had an excellent take on it in a standup routine. It's probably online.