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My battalion’s mortar platoon lived on the bottom floor of the barracks at Camp Lejeune and those Marines were always a pain. But they were good at their jobs and on the weekends, when the weather was good, they would have a barbecue down by the smoke pit.

Tim Ryan was one of those mortarmen. He had a thick Boston accent, and one time I ran into him at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. I think it was predeployment leave. We were both flying to Boston, and he was on an earlier flight. But when they announced the boarding process, he barely moved from the airport bar. He had been drinking alone most of the afternoon, so I helped him up and did what I could to get him to his gate. He was happy to be going home.

Tim was the first Marine in our battalion who killed himself after our unit got back from Afghanistan in July 2010. He was 23, and he died on May 7, 2011. He would not be the last. From then on, it seemed like every six months someone we knew died. In total, at least nine Marines from my unit have died since coming back from that deployment.