By
Airman Stefanie Torres
388th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah -- Time was passing into
the next day and he was destroyed … just completely gone.
His thoughts lingered on the details.
“Do I want an open or closed casket? Where should I shoot?”
He cocked the gun several times as he laid in bed ready
to make his last move.
“Who would care?”
March 23 was the last time Kevin Hainsel planned to see
daylight. This would be the last time he would see the early
sun peaking through the bottom of his window pane trying
to light up the room through the heavy blinds that shaded
him from the outside.
“I already made my decision,” Hainsel said.
He held the .380 caliber in his left hand and a faded memory
in the form of a picture of his wife in the other.
“I could no longer feel… yet my eyes welt up and tears continued
to stream down my face,” he said.
He could no longer see, but the images in his head were
so clear that the breath was stolen from his chest at every
thought, he said.
“So much torture; so much agony; the world would be better
without me.”
He wanted to stop the memories.
“I took my last drive to reason with myself, but the trip
was only a procrastination of my fate. I even spoke to my
mother and said my last goodbye.”
The lamp on his nightstand lit up the paper enough to write
his last words to family and friends explaining how sorry
he was that he was going to end his existence.
“I also wrote to my 15-year-old son who wanted nothing to
do with me. I gave him advice for his future endeavors without
me.” Hainsel said.
The night faded away and work loomed around the corner.
“I didn’t want to go to work. I made my decision about my
last day. Why would I get up and keep facing the demolished
world and wasted day I called my life? Why? I need to end
this now.”
Maybe through routine, he finally rose out of bed and left
for work.
He believes now that he just wanted the pain to go away.
He was late for work – unusual behavior for the technical
sergeant, and a fact noticed by his supervisors.
“I had to buy doughnuts for my shop because it was a tradition
to bring them in if you were late.”
One of his supervisors asked if everything was OK. At first,
he denied any problems.
“Then they called me into their office and asked me once
more. Then it all came to a head, and the walls of my inner-strength
were cracked. Everything I had bottled up inside for so
long came spilling out – raw and painful.
“I broke down,” he said.
He confessed all the emotional torture raging through his
soul. He talked about the heartbreak of his wife leaving,
the painful estrangement from his son, the anguish of his
father’s recent death and the agony of learning his mother
had bone cancer.
“They could not believe all the suffering I was going through.
They just assumed everything was great because I never mentioned
anything about having problems.
“But that day was the day my life was back,” Hainsel said.
“My supervisors stepped into both roles of being supervisors
and friends. They didn’t have to care.
“They saved me.”
With help from his supervisors, Hainsel was enrolled into
a clinic where he received professional counseling to learn
to cope with the pressures in his life that led to the suicidal
gesture.
Today, the 388th Equipment Maintenance Squadron munitions
system specialist here lives to tell his experience and
continues to try and help others who might understand the
familiarity of his story.
Hainsel’s thoughts of suicide started two months prior to
his “last day.”
“My father just died, my mother was diagnosed with cancer
and she was on the verge of passing away. My first wife
and I didn’t communicate, and my son didn’t want to hear
from me. And, I had found out my second wife was cheating
on me.
“My world was shattering right in front of me and I felt
like I had no control. The house of cards just fell. The
most obvious choice seemed to be suicide.”
But suicide should not be the option, said Chaplain (Capt.)
Robin Stephenson-Bratcher, a Hill AFB, Utah, chaplain.
“Attempting suicide is not a disease, it’s a state of mind,”
she said. “My one piece of advice would be to get help.
You are not in this alone. Airmen are struggling by themselves
but there’s no reason to feel that way.”
Hainsel talked about reaching the low point in his life
followed by an epiphany in the hospital.
“It just came to me that death was permanent and I can pull
through this,” he said. I’m not alone after all. Listening
to and talking about the many stories of others is a realization
that bad things do happen to people. There is no cure for
sadness. It’s about identifying triggers that make you feel
a certain way. It’s also realizing that everything is not
your fault and that tends to be a hard concept to grasp.
“I believe now that I didn’t want to die or I would be dead
today,” he said.
Even after pulling through his life terminating thoughts,
he explained how depression can return. He equated depression
with alcoholism. You are more susceptible to fall in that
key state after going through it before, he explained.
“People need to come in before suicidal thoughts even come
in to play,” Stephenson-Bratcher said. “We are here to help.
There is nothing stopping anybody from receiving the care
you need when you are in that state of mind. It doesn’t
affect your military record, and it doesn’t follow you through
your career.
“The people at the life skills center, family advocacy,
any chaplain and medical professionals are there for you,”
she said. “Supervisors and first sergeants can send you
down the right path for help.”
“I live with the motto that everyday above ground is a good
day,” Hainsel said. “I tell that to everyone. Nobody can
prove me wrong.”
