Suicide rates among these Oklahoma vets is the highest in the nation

CRESCENT — Hours before dawn on a March morning in 2015, Josh Holley woke to his worried mother knocking on his bedroom door.

Your brother's downstairs in the bathroom, she told him. He's sick, and he's yelling.

When Josh found his younger brother, Jeffrey, a U.S. Army veteran who had been discharged for medical reasons four months earlier, Jeffrey told him not to worry, he only had a stomachache. Josh asked if he needed anything. Jeffrey said he didn't, so Josh turned to walk back upstairs. But before he could leave, Jeffrey said something that caught Josh by surprise.

"I love you," Jeffrey said. The comment struck Josh as strange. It wasn't the way Jeffrey usually talked. But Josh didn't think much of it.