NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Virginia. (AP) â On Navy ships docked at this vast base, hundreds of sailors in below-deck mazes of windowless passageways perform intense, often monotonous manual labor. It's necessary work before a ship deploys, but hard to adjust to for many already challenged by the stresses plaguing young adults nationwide.
Growing mental health distress in the ranks carries such grave implications that the U.S. chief of naval operations, Adm. Michael Gilday, answered âsuicidesâ when asked earlier this year what in the security environment kept him up at night.
One recently embraced prevention strategy is to deploy chaplains as regular members of the crew on more ships. The goal is for the clergy to connect with sailors, believers and non-believers alike, in complete confidentiality â something that has allowed several to talk sailors out of suicidal crises.
âThat makes us accessible as a relief valve,â said Capt. David Thames, an Episcopal priest whoâs responsible for chaplains for the Navyâs surface fleet in the Atlantic, covering dozens of ships from the East Coast to Bahrain.
The families of two young men who killed themselves in Norfolk said chaplains could be effective as part of a larger effort to facilitate access to mental health care without stigma or retaliation. But they also insist on accountability and a chain of command committed to eliminating bullying and engaging younger generations.
âA chaplain could help, but it wouldnât matter if you donât empower them,â said Patrick Caserta, a former Navy recruiter. His son Brandon was 21 when he killed himself in 2018, after struggling with depression and being âtold to suck it up and go back to work.â
Highlighting the urgency of the problem, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Norfolk on Friday reported a new Navy suicide. It said Devon Jeffrey Faehnrich, an electronics technician from Colorado serving on the submarine USS Montana, killed himself in Newport News earlier this week.
—- EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. The national suicide and crisis lifeline is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at
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Mental health problems, especially among enlisted men under 29, mirror and colleges, which are also for counseling. The isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated depression and anxiety for many.
But chaplains, civilian counselors, families of suicide victims, and sailors from commodores to the newly enlisted say these struggles pose unique challenges and security implications in the military, where suicides have risen for most of the past decade and took the lives of 519 service members in 2021, per the latest Department of Defense data.
âAdjustment disorderâ is the most common mental health diagnosis among sailors, Gilday said Wednesday at a budget hearing of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee. He asked to invest in chaplains and others onboard who can help âseparate life stress from mental illnessâ and get sailors âat the tactical edgeâ the right care.
âMental health permeates every aspect of our operations,â Capt. Blair Guy, commodore for one of the destroyer squadrons based in Norfolk, said via email. "Enhancing spiritual readiness enhances operations, it is not an either or discussion.â
His squadronâs lead chaplain, Lt. Cmdr. Madison Carter, is working on recruiting others for the three ships still without permanent chaplains. In the next two years, leaders hope to have 47 chaplains on ships based in Norfolk, up from 37 today. Previously, chaplains â who are both naval officers and clergy from various denominations â were routinely deployed only on the largest aircraft carriers that have up to 5,000 personnel.
Carter, a Baptist pastor, said most of his talks with sailors involve not faith but life struggles that can make them feel unfulfilled and lose focus.
âHow do I make sure that you have mind, body and soul all locked in?â is the question that drives his mission.
The very real prospect of killing or being killed in combat provokes âGod-sized questions,â in Thamesâ words. He joined the Navy after 9/11 and served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sailors can carry the routine angst of teens and young adults, from political polarization to breakups to broken homes, which some enlist to escape. But onboard, disconnected from their real and virtual networks, they lack the usual coping mechanisms, said Jochebed Swilley, a civilian social worker who collaborates with chaplains and medical staff aboard the USS Bataan, an amphibious assault ship.
Most communications are off-limits at sea for security â lest a Russian frigate show up while youâre texting mom, Thames said he explains to digital-native sailors.
âEighteen to 21-year-olds donât know life without smartphones,â said Kayla Arestivo, a counselor and advocate for service members and veterans whose nonprofit serves more than 100 of them each week on her horse farm near Norfolk. âIf you remove a sense of connection, mental health plummets.â
Chief Legalman Florian Morrison, whoâs served on the Bataan for more than two years tackling mental health cases at the shipâs legal office and as a lay leader for other Christian sailors, said faith is what helped him âre-centerâ after losing three shipmates to suicide.
âIt can be overwhelming... if you feel alone and youâve nobody to reach out to,â Morrison said in the chapel set up in the shipâs bow. âYouâve got to catch it before you start going down that path. A streamlined pathway to mental health would help.â
Petty Officer 3rd Class Benjamin Dumas, 21, whoâs served for two months on the USS Gravely, a destroyer, hopes to become a nondenominational Christian lay leader to help the shipâs more than 300 other sailors navigate anxiety and depression.
âIâve seen a lot of brokenness,â he said.
Even docked, ships are far from stress-free, as sailors constantly navigate steep ladderwells and pressurized, hulking doors under the glare of fluorescent lights and the constant hum of machinery.
Berths can be stacked four people high and pieces of gear protrude ubiquitously. Space is so tight and regimented that a challenge across the fleet is where to squeeze in offices for new chaplains, said Cmdr. Hunter Washburn, the Gravelyâs commanding officer.
His crew looks forward to getting a permanent chaplain later this year who can interact âeyeball to eyeball, to check in and see how theyâre doing," Washburn said.
A Navy chaplainâs role is akin to a life coach, helping young sailors find their footing as adults in an environment that looks far more different from the civilian world than it did in previous generations.
âA lot havenât found that grounding yet. Theyâre looking,â said Lt. Greg Johnson, a Baptist chaplain who joined the Bataan in December. âA lot of people have resiliency. They just donât know how to tap into it.â
In the Navy, clergy need to engage with people of different or even no faith who might be initially turned off by the cross or other religious symbols on their uniforms â something that new chaplains need to be ready for if the effort to place more of them on ships is to succeed.
âI want the people who can be uncomfortable and still be the bearers of Godâs presence,â Carter said.
Sailors call them âdeck-plating chapsâ â chaplains striking up a conversation with their shipmates in the mess decks or during night watches, in addition to keeping an open-door policy at all hours.
âTheyâre accustomed to me making the rounds," said Thames. "Iâm going to find them when theyâre eating meals, or itâs 3 a.m. and weâre making a high-risk transit through Hormuz,â a geopolitically crucial strait in the Middle East.
Lt. Cmdr. Nathan Rice, a Pentecostal chaplain serving a destroyer squadron at Norfolk, estimates he did 7,000 hours of counseling over 12 years. Long lines of sailors waiting to talk often formed outside his door.
âTheyâre grinding on a ship or serving food on a mess line, thatâs not what they expected. So we help to find their meaning and purpose,â Rice said. âWhen their life is not going the way they think it should be going, Iâll be blunt and ask, âWhy havenât you killed yourself?ââ
Focusing on the answers â the âanchorsâ to the sailorsâ will to survive â has helped Rice talk some down from the ledge, including one sailor who knocked on his door crying that he wanted to live and a corpsman who, while discussing suicide dreams, suddenly cocked his weapon and told Rice, âI could do it right now.â
Lt. Cmdr. Ben Garrett has also diffused several suicide situations in the more than a decade heâs been a Catholic chaplain, for the past eight months on the Bataan, which when underway carries 1,000 sailors, 1,600 Marines and three other chaplains. But last fall, he officiated the memorial for a suicide victim.
âThere were sailors in the rafters,â he recalled. âIt affects the whole crew.â
Most profoundly, suicide impacts surviving families. Kody Decker was 22 and a new father when he killed himself at a maintenance facility in Norfolk, where he was transferred after struggling with depression on the Bataan, according to his father, Robert Decker.
âHe wanted to give to his country,â the father said at his home a dozen miles from the base. Pictures of Kody, his older brother and their grandfather â all in their Navy uniforms â rest on the mantelpiece next to the folded flag from Kodyâs funeral.
Robert Decker, a high school teacher and football coach, believes Kody might still be alive if he had better access to mental health care instead of being put on limited duty and deprived of his sense of purpose while assigned menial tasks.
Heâs not sure if talking to a chaplain would have made a difference with Kody, though speedy implementation of the Brandon Act might have. The bill, named after the Casertasâ son, aims to improve the process for mental health evaluations for service members.
But Decker hasnât given up on either the Navy or God.
âMy whole fight is about not having other families like us,â he said as a tear rolled down his cheek. âI pray to God every night, for help, for healing, for strength. Iâm not a quitter. But itâs hard.â
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