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Gregg and Jannett Keesling are the parents of Chancellor Keesling, a US soldier who took his own life on June 19th of this year. Chancellor was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. During his first deployment, he suffered mental health issues so severe he was placed on suicide watch. After getting back to the United States, Chancellor had turned down a bonus offer to return to Iraq in the hopes he wouldn’t be redeployed. But he was called back in May. One month later, he took his own life. Since Chancellor’s death, Gregg and Jannett Keesling have yet to receive a letter of condolence from President Obama. After making inquiries, they discovered that this was not because of an oversight. Instead, it’s because of a longstanding US policy to deny presidential condolence letters to the families of soldiers who take their own lives
Well, when you leave the enlisted Army and you’re moving to the Reserves—and I think they needed soldiers, so they were offering soldiers a bonus to be able to return back to Iraq at an earlier day. And so, he knew he had some mental health issues. He was undergoing treatment at the VA. And he said that—he turned down this bonus. It prevented them from deploying him for two years. And he felt he would not get deployed. In fact, we sat down as a family, and we said, you know, “President Obama is going to be reelected, and President Obama will end this war, and you won’t have to go.”
But when he did get called up, we sat down, and we talked all the different options. You know, we’re dual citizens, and we actually talked about Chancy going to Jamaica to stay there. But he looked at us and said, you know, “Dad, I’m an American, too. I’m a soldier. This is my duty. I can handle it. I will go.” And sadly, for us as a family, it was not the right decision.
And we have learned that during his enlisted time, the mental health issues that he faced never reached his reserve unit. There is actually a law that prevents mental health issues that occur during your enlisted time from passing over to the Reserves. And it’s a law that comes from, you know, our Vietnam days, when reservists were not used in war the way we’ve used them this time. And I think that’s one of the messages we hope gets out, that we look at how mental health issues get transferred to the Guard and the Reserve units as these soldiers are deployed over and over and over again.
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Well, when you leave the enlisted Army and you’re moving to the Reserves—and I think they needed soldiers, so they were offering soldiers a bonus to be able to return back to Iraq at an earlier day. And so, he knew he had some mental health issues. He was undergoing treatment at the VA. And he said that—he turned down this bonus. It prevented them from deploying him for two years. And he felt he would not get deployed. In fact, we sat down as a family, and we said, you know, “President Obama is going to be reelected, and President Obama will end this war, and you won’t have to go.”
But when he did get called up, we sat down, and we talked all the different options. You know, we’re dual citizens, and we actually talked about Chancy going to Jamaica to stay there. But he looked at us and said, you know, “Dad, I’m an American, too. I’m a soldier. This is my duty. I can handle it. I will go.” And sadly, for us as a family, it was not the right decision.
And we have learned that during his enlisted time, the mental health issues that he faced never reached his reserve unit. There is actually a law that prevents mental health issues that occur during your enlisted time from passing over to the Reserves. And it’s a law that comes from, you know, our Vietnam days, when reservists were not used in war the way we’ve used them this time. And I think that’s one of the messages we hope gets out, that we look at how mental health issues get transferred to the Guard and the Reserve units as these soldiers are deployed over and over and over again.
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and no business bout no policy~~ 
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