Suicide of a Veteran

Jeffrey Charles Davis, 36, seemed inexorably drawn to the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial in Washington. A D.C. police officer for more than 15 years, Davis is said to have once called the memorial "the ugliest thing I ever saw." Yet he would often visit it after finishing his duty, to stare at the 148 black granite slabs inscribed with the names of the 57,939 Americans killed or missing in the Viet Nam War. A decorated veteran, Davis had served in Viet Nam with the 101st Airborne Division when he was only 17 years old. On a bright cool morning last week, Davis, a husband and father of two small children, was found sitting in civilian clothes under a tree just a few hundred feet from the memorial. He had shot himself in the head.

It was the first suicide anyone could recall at the monument. To most of his friends, Davis had not seemed traumatized by Viet Nam, but some said he had returned cynical and bitter. "Who knows what he was thinking about?" said former Marine Mike Conner, one of the veterans who help stand a 24-hour volunteer watch at the memorial. "Maybe the survivor guilt got to him."

For many who knew him, Davis' death brought back the anguish of Viet Nam. Said the Rev. Walter Childress in his eulogy: "The human frailties and vulnerabilities of that war will be with us as long as they live--Viet Nam Veterans Memorial those who fought there."