Veteran suicides: ‘Let my brother be the last’

THE grieving sister of the 41st veteran known to have died by suicide this year has made an emotional plea to Australia: “Please, let my brother be the last”.

THE grieving sister of the 41st veteran known to have died by suicide this year has made an emotional plea to Australia: “Please, let my brother be the last”.

By the time East Timor veteran Chris Stiles took his own life, on August 3, he had lost his job, his family and his home. His Canberra-based sister, Lisa Alward, said a warning to the Australian Defence Force in March that her brother was at high risk of self-harm went unheeded.

“He should have been on their radar. But they did not help him,” Mrs Alward said. “I pleaded with the authorities to step up to this challenge, listen to this message that our veterans are suffering and need help and make my brother the last one.”

Ms Alward’s brother was the 41st military veteran who took his own life this year.

Lisa Alward is given away on her wedding day by her brother Chris Stiles.

Since The Sunday Telegraph’s revelations last week that as many service and ex-servicemen and women had killed themselves this year as died in 13 years of war in Afghanistan, two further suicides have been reported.

“I have been notified of two more suspected suicides since the articles ran on Sunday. I am now in the process of confirming these,” said Loretta Somerville, of The Warrior ­Returns, which has the most comprehensive data base of suicides of servicemen and women.

This takes the probable tragic national toll to 43.

The former soldier took his own life earlier this year.

Chris Stiles as a young Lance Corporal in the mid-1990s.

Many ex-service organisations told The Sunday Telegraph the figure was likely to have been the “tip of the iceberg”.

Mrs Alward said her brother had been exposed to traumatic events in his service, including witnessing an accidental grenade death of one of his mates during a training exercise.

Chris was discharged from the army in 2006, but his claim with the Department of Veteran Affairs was still unresolved, a cause of great frustration. He had submitted his claim in November last year.

“This ping-ponging between departments has to stop,” she said. “There is so much supposed support out there, but if it was there to help my brother, he wasn’t able to access it.”

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Originally published as Veteran suicides: ‘Let my brother be the last’