A soldier's story: Nowhere to go

Struggling to find a family he can keep, a former foster child joins the Army and heads to war

By GINA KIM
THE SACRAMENTO BEE

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More service members killed themselves while serving in the Iraq war last year than in any year since the war began, and the suicide count for 2007 is on track to surpass that. The dead are generally junior enlisted soldiers who are single, white and male. They are Mike Crutchfield.

It's two days before Christmas 2006, but it doesn't feel much like the holidays in "The Suck," what soldiers sometimes call Iraq, where the days blend together -- broken up only by brilliant sunrises and sunsets.

Michael Crutchfield taps out a final e-mail to his family 7,392 miles away in Stockton. It is a suicide note -- to his mother, brother, sister and nephew. He hits "send" at 12:13 p.m. Then the 21-year-old Army specialist picks up his military-issued M9 Beretta. He presses it to his chest. And he fires.

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HOW THIS STORY
WAS REPORTED

Sacramento Bee reporter Gina Kim interviewed more than a dozen of Mike Crutchfield's friends and relatives and reviewed his e-mails and MySpace blog.
With the consent of Mike's mother, Kim made a half-dozen Freedom of Information Act requests to the Army and Department of Defense for Mike's records.
The moments just before and after Mike's death were included in the Army's Line of Duty Investigation released to The Bee.
Efforts to resuscitate Mike were chronicled by Sgt. Felipe Godinez on his MySpace blog, written two days later, and were confirmed by the Army's death investigation. Kim and Godinez communicated via e-mail, and he was informed that his public blog would be included in this story.
Mike's friend Jonny Sotello recounted the days they lived together in the transitional housing program in Stockton.
Danielle Duarte and her mother-in-law, Marilyn Duarte, remembered Mike's 18th birthday.
Mike's 16th birthday was detailed by his mother, Anna Alford, and confirmed by his sister Amber Crutchfield.
Sotello recalled the day recruiter Staff Sgt. Alexander Cancela visited their school. Cancela, now a sergeant
first class, shared his memories of Mike in an e-mail from his post in Iraq.
Friends Sotello and Johnny Keovilay recounted Mike's first time drinking alcohol. Spc. Elliot Mendoza detailed their first meeting and friendship.
Sotello and his girlfriend, Payge Simpson, recounted the scene in the apartment before Mike went to Iraq.
The series was edited by Features editor Sarah Lopez Williams. Bee researcher Sheila Kern contributed to this report.
UNDER PRESSURE:
THE STATE OF TROOPS'
MENTAL HEALTH

After a record number of service members committed suicide while serving in Iraq in 2003, the Office of the U.S. Army Surgeon General established the Mental Health Advisory Team. It assesses the services provided by the military and their accessibility in war zones. These are some of the findings of the fourth advisory team sent to Iraq, released in May 2007.
- Midtour leaves are insufficient for restoring psychological and mental well-being: The mental health status of soldiers who receive midtour leave is no different from Marines who do not receive midtour leave.
- Longer deployments translate into higher rates of marital and mental health problems.
- Multiple deployers report higher acute stress than first-time deployers.
- Behavioral health providers should have additional combat stress control training before deploying to Iraq; less than 5 percent have attended the Army's combat stress course.
- Many behavioral health providers report paying for their own psychology books and say they lack transportation to reach the units they support.
- Only 5 percent of soldiers report taking in-theater rest and relaxation, even though the average time deployed is nine months.
- Of the 20 percent of soldiers who screen positive for mental health problems such as depression, anxiety or acute stress, 42 percent seek help from a behavioral health provider, primary care provider or chaplain. Of the 15 percent of Marines who screen positive, 38 percent seek help.
- Among soldiers, 59 percent say they don't seek help because unit leaders may treat them differently, 55 percent say it's because they might be seen as weak and 35 percent fear it would harm their careers.
- In naming top concerns, 56 percent of soldiers report long deployments, 47 percent cite being separated from their families and 40 percent rate uncertain redeployment dates.

Two soldiers passing Mike's office in the Balad motor pool hear the gunshot and a shell hit the floor. Then groaning. They kick the door in and there's Mike, sitting in his chair, his arms hanging limp, his head tilted back.

"C'mon, Crutch! Don't ... quit on me!" screams Sgt. Felipe Godinez, who rushes to his friend. "C'mon, Crutch baby, I'm ... fightin' for you."

Godinez puts his mouth onto Mike's, trying to force air into his lungs. He pumps the air bag after the medics arrive. He pumps all the way to the hospital, until a doctor forces the blue bag from his hands.

Mike is pronounced dead at 12:49 p.m.

"My friend laid on the table with a bullet in his chest; life had already slipped away from him," Godinez writes on his MySpace blog. "It had slipped away from me while I was giving him mouth to mouth on that cold hard concrete way back in the motor pool."

Godinez steps backward, makes his way to the corner of the emergency room and falls to his knees, his back to Mike. Someone tells him to step out of the room and he waits until a chaplain comes, until he feels an overwhelming urge to see his friend one last time.

He stares as Mike's eyelids droop over the blue eyes that can no longer see. Godinez reaches out and closes them, then mumbles, "Crutch, you the man."

A message in silence
Spring 2001

"Hey, I know you," Mike says to Jonny Sotello.

Sotello recognizes the slight 16-year-old who couldn't be more than 5-foot-7 and 130 pounds, with a high-pitched laugh. The two met a few months back at a group home where kids with nowhere to go end up.

Sotello wouldn't forget him.

Mike stands out. He's not loud or bawdy or the life of the party. It's the way he carries himself, straight-backed with a model-like stride. It's the intensity of his gaze. It's the way you meet him and realize he's deciding whether you're worth being his friend.

Now they are in a Stockton housing program for older teenage boys -- assigned two to an apartment with monthly stipends. The common denominator is heartache; the boys all have someone who failed them because of drugs, abuse or neglect. They don't talk much about their pasts, but they silently understand each other.

Mike's in the corner room of Unit 33, the two-bedroom apartment he shares with Sotello. Other boys in the program are scattered about the Stockton apartment complex, so there's always someone here playing the card game "Magic" or video game "Dance Dance Revolution."

There's also always someone toying with teenage trouble. But not Mike. He refuses alcohol, drugs, even aspirin and caffeine. He has lived with addicts. That won't ever be him. "Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's good for you," he preaches to his friends.