Helping heroes in crisis: Guardian Response Unit works to save Iowa veterans from dying by suicide
By Ben Kaplan
Click here for updates on this story
DES MOINES, Iowa (KCCI) — The newest data from the Department of Veterans Affairs shows nearly 15% of deaths by suicide in Iowa are veterans. The suicide rate amongst those who served is nearly double the rate of everyone else.
Veteran John Thompson started a nonprofit organization to help Iowa families navigate these unimaginable losses. Now, he’s trying to stop them from happening at all. And he’s using a beat-up old ambulance to help his cause.
“The goal of buying an ambulance is, an ambulance is used to help save lives,” Thompson said. “But it’s the medical side. Why can’t it be the mental side?”
Thompson has dedicated his life to this cause because he remembers when he felt he had reached the end of the road.
“When I got home out of the military, I was one of those that struggled severely with transition. Attempted suicide five times,” he told KCCI’s Ben Kaplan.
That was a decade ago.
In the years since, he and his wife, Misti, started the Cedar Rapids-based nonprofit Salute to the Fallen.
At first, the goal was to help families deal with the tragedy of losing a service member.
“We’ve assisted in 564 funerals in the last 6 years,” Thompson said.
More than 400 were tied to suicide.
“You see the Killed in Actions in the news,” Thompson said. “How many people show up to support the families. And a soldier that struggles with the injuries of war that comes back, and takes their life, no one shows up. It’s very somber to see the big difference.”
In the last two years, they’ve also been responding before tragedy happens, primarily in Eastern Iowa.
“This year alone, we’ve handled 342 crisis calls.”
And the Guardian Response Unit, which is what the ambulance will become, will traverse the entire state and is the next puzzle piece.
“When you step into it, it’s going to look like an industrial living room. It’s going to have a calming effect; it’s not going to look like a medical unit,” Thompson explains.
He says a therapist will occupy the chair in the front.
“We can actually seat up to three other individuals. So, the first responder or veteran or soldier that is struggling, and a support network, their spouse can be there if they choose to do that, that way they can help if they choose to with the process moving forward.”
Thompson says the GRU will also be “a mobile resource center because one of the issues we see across rural communities here in Iowa is people don’t know how to find out what resources are available or what events are going on across the state.”
Debra and Jerry Sanders say it never gets any easier.
“I say a prayer every night, when I say that prayer at the end of it, I say, dear lord, please let him know how much we still miss him.”
They think a resource like the GRU could have helped their son, Staff Sgt. Adam Sanders, who served two decades in the Iowa National Guard and died by suicide in April of 2020.
“We did not realize he was having problems,” Debra said.
“The length of stays we had with him weren’t long. I guess in a way, we should have noticed something then. Because we were close to him.”
The hulking 300-pound Hawkeye fanatic was a career soldier who deployed multiple times. His family was the first Salute to the Fallen helped through the tragedy.
“We were basically lost. We didn’t know what the next step was,” Jerry says.
Debra added, “John connected us with the people and the agencies that could help us get through any red tape that we needed to get through.”
They believe their son’s memory lives on when “Salute to the Fallen” helps others.
“His smile, his laugh, his bear hugs. We all have to remember those things,” Debra said with tears in her eyes.
John knows if something is beat up, it doesn’t mean it can’t be saved. He is proof that there can still be a lot of great roads ahead.
The Salute to the Fallen is about $8,000 short of its fundraising goal for the Guardian Response Unit.
And, if you’d like to utilize its services, you can contact the ‘Salute to the Fallen’ here: salutetothefallen.org
If you, or someone you know, needs help right now, you can call 988 24-7. Press 1 to reach the Veteran Crisis Line.
Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.