What happened to Austin Valley should not happen to any soldier

Weatherman receives death threats for reporting on threat of climate change

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

We were about an hour in to the high school's end-of-the year awards program.

You probably know the drill. After four years of hard work, the seniors were collecting honors and scholarship money for college.

At one point, a group of students who were not going to college were called to the stage. The speaker announced they had all enlisted in different branches of the armed services. He spoke of the importance of serving our country and the sacrifice that went with it. It seemed to go on quite a bit longer than the other honors.

And when he was done, the entire auditorium rose in a standing ovation for these students who would be serving our country and contributing to our national defense.

I didn't stand.

I was worried about them.

Serving in the military these days is difficult and perhaps more demanding that any point in our history. That will surprise many of you. Looking at the bright-eyed youngsters on the stage that evening, I was certain that they had no idea they would be more likely to face sexual assault, depression and thoughts of suicide than their other classmates.

The New York Times did a deep dive into the suicide of one Army solider this past week in its magazine with the piece "A disaster of the U.S. military's own making."

Austin Valley was one of those high school kids from a military family intent on making a career out of the U.S. Army. He was described  by a squad mate as "one of the best workers I've seen in the military."

But Valley became a casualty of a new type of war.

He was one of at least 158-active-duty Army soldiers to die by suicide in 2023.

While on a mission to train European troops in Poland, he texted his parents: "Hey mom and dad I love you it was never your fault."

Austin Valley borrowed a knife from a friend, some rope and walked off alone into the woods.

Alarmed by the message, his parents reached out to friends and superiors in his unit. One of them found Valley hanging from a tree in the woods.

But he was still breathing.

Valley survived that first suicide attempt and while he continued to spiral deeper into his depression, the Army failed time and time again to get him the help he needed.

Investigative journalist Janet Reitman reported that suicide rates continue to rise in the 20 years since the Army first started tracking them.

  "That these deaths are occurring within a peacetime military contradicts a common misperception that soldier suicide is closely linked to PTSD from combat," Reitman wrote. "In fact, those at the highest risk for suicide are active-duty personnel who have never deployed. During the first half of 2023, 102 soldiers from Valley’s 4,000-person brigade were hospitalized for suicidal ideation."

That's an epidemic.

  “Unfortunately, I think suicide has just become a normal part of Army culture,” one former officer at Fort Riley, Kansas told Reitman. “It doesn’t even surprise anyone anymore when it happens.”

Despite the fact that the United States is not actively involved in any current wars, it has maintained a global footprint even as its total force has shrunk. It has become more and more difficult for the Army to recruit and maintain that force around the world. Reitman reports that the Army is busier than ever with deployments and training missions which has led to overwork and stress among soldiers.

Reitman's year-long investigation into Valley's death included more than three dozen interviews with family, friends, fellow soldiers, senior Army leaders and mental-health specialists, as well as a review of Valley's medical records, social media posts and text messages. They revealed the Army's mental-health system continues to be more focused on ensuring units meet their personnel goals than the welfare of soldiers.

Remember that.

While we here at home stand for the veteran dropping the puck at the ice hockey game, or cheer for service members during the seventh-inning stretch at Yankee Stadium, I wonder how much we think about their care.

We should be demanding more.

Reitman reported, "A senior officer in Valley’s brigade I spoke to says the military has created a mental-health crisis so acute that he regards it as the Army’s new war. `Every generation of soldiers is defined by the conflicts that killed them,' he says. `For the greatest generation, it was World War II; for baby boomers it was Vietnam; for Gen X it was Iraq and Afghanistan. This new generation, what’s killing them is suicide.'"

Valley's case is tragic because it could easily have been prevented.

After surviving his first suicide attempt in Poland, Valley returned to his base in Kansas and then, incredibly, returned to active duty. despite continued depression and thoughts of trying suicide again.

Finally, he showed up drunk at the apartment of an ex-girlfriend, forced his way inside and when the police arrived they found him bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head.

It was exactly one month since he tried to hang himself in Poland.

For those of our elected representatives on the Armed Services Committee this problem should be their top priority.

And if we truly want to honor those who serve our country, we should start demanding from the politicians better care and more information about those considering a career in the military.

Every military recruiter should be required to share the Times investigation of Austin Valley's death with the young people they are trying to convince to serve.

Summer Blast

For those of us who live here, seeing the fireworks over Lake George should be a regular occurrence.

But it probably isn't.

We don't want to deal with crowds, and the traffic and the frustration getting home.

Here's the solution. The Chapman Museum is hosting a "Summer Blast" fundraiser in Lake George for the first time this summer.

The event is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 1 at the Fort William Henry Hotel Carriage House where you will get a chance to see the weekly fireworks from out on the hotel's lawn.

The cost is $125 a person - remember it is for a good cause - and a special price for anyone under 35 for $115. You get dinner, entertainment, fireworks and free parking.

Call the Chapman Museum to reserve your tickets today at 518 793-2826.

Death threats

A Boston weatherman and climate scientist was recruited by a Des Moines, Iowa television station two years ago with the goal of weaving the reality of global warming with daily forecasts when applicable. They hoped he could inform as well as predict.

It didn't go well.

Viewers complained Chris Gloninger should "stick to the weather," despite its critical link with climate station.

Finally, there was a death threat.

“It was ‘I am going to kill you’ written in a very deliberate way in a long letter and followed by obsessive emails,” Gloninger told The Guardian newspaper.

“Go the hell back to where you came from DOUCHEBAG!!!” and “what’s your home address, we conservative Iowans would like to give you an Iowan welcome you will never forget.”

He was accused of pushing a “liberal conspiracy theory on the weather.”

The management of the station asked him to tone down the talk of climate change. He decided instead to take a job as chief scientist with the Woods Hole Group in Massachusetts.

Last week, Gloninger told viewers he was leaving. The response was outrage over the death threat and even more viewers thanking him for his focus on climate change.

The Guardian summed it up this way:

"The episode serves as a stark reminder that even though polling shows increasing numbers of Americans are alarmed by the sort of climate impacts on vivid display this summer – with its record, searing heat, ruinous floods and toxic wildfire smoke – and more meteorologists feel compelled to mention this worsening emergency in their forecasts, there is a significant chunk of the population that sees the crisis as just another part of an all-encompassing culture war."

They not only don't believe the science, they don't believe what they are seeing all around them.

Dances with Wolves

Three years ago I taped Kevin Costner's epic tale "Dances With Wolves" with my DVR. I didn't watch it until the other night.

The specifics of the 1990 movie had faded with time, but I did I remembered it cleaned up at the Oscars - 7 Academy Awards including Best Director for Costner. It was THE movie to see that year.

Viewing the movie 34 years later brought a renewed appreciation for a film that dared to use the real language of the Sioux tribe - subtitled in  the movie - and make the cavalry soldiers the bad guys.

It was a movie before its time.

The years gave me a renewed appreciation for a character - Kevin Costner in the movie - who was open to understanding and appreciating a culture other than his own.

It would be nice to see more of that in today's world.

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.