Photo By Sgt. Jerry Zuetrong | Command Sgt. Maj. John R. Hilton, the command sergeant major of the Pinellas Park,...... read more read more
[WEARE, N.H.] The senior advisor to the Pinellas Park, Florida, based Army Reserve Medical Command’s commanding general shared his suicide ideations and his struggles to find resilience in a “Connect to Protect” video conversation.
“I had a really big challenge to overcome. I had a two-year stretch that was very, very bad. It was right after I got back from Iraq, well, actually it was on the way back from Iraq. I had just spent a year on Route Irish in the middle of Baghdad during The Surge,” said Command Sgt. Maj. John R. Hilton, next to a roaring fire in the living room of his home here to Joseph A. Walser, AR-MEDCOM’s manager of suicide prevention programs.
Hilton said to Walser that it started with a phone call.
“I get the call that my stepfather, who has been with me the majority of my life, he passes away while I'm in Kuwait on the way home, two days after I get home, I'm at the funeral,” he said.
“Two days after that, my wife drops a divorce on me, a few months later, the divorce court tells me I got to be out on Father's Day--I think they have a sense of humor,” he said.
The command sergeant major, who earned his Norwich University MBA in strategic leadership and project management, said the culmination of personal and military events nearly broke him.
“That was a challenge, and then over the next 18 months, I lost my one and only brother to Huntington's disease, and my stepson, who I had been with almost his entire life, passed away as well,” he said. “It was after my brother had died--that was the last--that was like the straw that was going to break the camel's back.”
The veteran of deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Djibouti and Kuwait said he was outside alone, when he was overcome with his situation.
“I was burning brush,” he said. “I was just sitting there--alcohol wasn't involved--and I thought about walking into the bonfire.”
Hilton said it was not an isolated incident. “I had suicidal ideations more than a couple times over that two-year period.”
It was thinking about the family he had left and visualizing his situation that helped him off-ramp safely, he said.
“I realized then one of the best things you can do is to start caring about others and it gets your mind off yourself and all the things that are going on,” he said.
“I went 30 or 40 feet above myself in the air--I had realized that I still got my mom, I still got my daughter,” the former heavy anti-armor weapons crewman and drill sergeant said.
“They talk about getting into that downward spiral,” he said. “You're in a boat going on the sea of life, massive waves--over that two-year period for me, and a couple of times it was--there's a maelstrom, a whirlpool, and you are literally going towards the edge into that downward spiral—but yeah, you think about--for me it was--I thought of others.”
Walser traveled here from AR-MEDCOM headquarters because Hilton is a troop program unit Soldier, or TPU, who drills at the command’s battle assemblies with the other part-time Soldiers assigned to the command’s headquarters and headquarters detachment.
Walser said to Hilton he was grateful for his openness.
“Even beyond expectations, your vulnerability and going into some difficult places, sharing with us your own stories, your own challenges, your own problem solving, your own work with resilience was amazing,” the Marine combat veteran said.
“I know it's going to benefit our Soldiers,” he said.
The “Connect to Protect” conversation is one of a series of four videos with members of the AR-MEDCOM command team, including Maj. Gen. Michael L. Yost, the commanding general; Brig. Gen. Jennifer A. Marrast Host, the deputy commanding general and the command’s senior warrant officer advisor to the commanding general.
The outgoing senior warrant officer advisor to the commanding general, Chief Warrant Officer 4 LaTonya Y. Pettigrew, also participated in the “Connect to Protect” video with an introduction and a check-on-learning commentary at the end.
In her welcoming remarks, Pettigrew said viewers should prepare themselves for Hilton’s candor.
“I'd like for you to listen for his specific resiliency challenges and the resiliency skills he used to overcome those challenges,” said the master resiliency trainer.
“Look for how the command sergeant major relied on his strength of character, even as he was overwhelmed by multiple activating events,” she said.
“Some of what you are going to hear is going to surprise you,” she said.
“As the command sergeant major shares the most difficult moments of his life and his own ideations that would've led to ending that life,” she said. “Don't ignore his example and be ready to open yourself to your Soldiers to be the leader who Soldiers can approach as well.”
In her closing remarks, the chief warrant officer said Hilton set an example for everyone.
“I hope you recognized when the command sergeant major was discussing his trigger points and more importantly how he recognized them himself and used coping skills to come out on the other side of crisis events,” Pettigrew said.
In addition to his own suicide ideations, Walser asked Hilton what his message would be to another Soldier who was thinking about walking into the fire.
Hilton said he found ways to manage his despair that would work for others.
“When I'm not in uniform, I'm a very introverted person, so I didn't want to talk to anybody, but I had to get it out, so I kept a journal. I wrote in it every day,” he said.
“There's a lot of swear words in there along with other things I had--you have to get your thoughts out, and I still got the book up in the attic in one of the footlockers,” he said.
Another outlet was exercise, he said.
“You have to unleash all the physical feelings pent up because at some point you start thinking these thoughts that this has got to be somebody's fault,” he said. “‘I didn't do anything wrong. Why is all of this happening to me?’ and sometimes you just feel like choking someone out, hurting someone else, so I hit the gym--sometimes twice a day.”
Hilton said it is vital to take control of your thoughts.
“You can't dwell on the bad,” he said. “After a while, you realize bad things happen to good people, and life is what it is, oftentimes in spite of putting your best efforts forth.”
The command sergeant major, who completed his first year on the job in February, said it is also important for leaders to create an environment where Soldiers are not afraid to reach out about their own suicidal ideations.
“If a unit has a culture that allows a Soldier to come up and say something without fear of getting made fun of or reprisal or retribution, anything like that, that sets the stage for change to happen,” he said.
“Our challenge is oftentimes we don't know who's going through that,” he said.
“They're hiding in plain sight, and they're putting on their best face. They don't want anybody else to know. We can't protect if we don't connect because a lot of times it’s not that visible,” Hilton said.
“It's when it goes radio silent; that's when a red star cluster needs to go up.”
| Date Taken: | 03.19.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.19.2025 14:23 |
| Story ID: | 493234 |
| Location: | WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, US |
| Web Views: | 81 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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