Editor’s Note: This article contains a description of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the Veterans Crisis Hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at 800-273-8255, press 1. Services also are available online at www.veteranscrisisline.net or by text, 838255.

In the weeks leading up to Brandon Caserta’s death, friends said little seemed amiss with the smiling sailor they knew from the “gedunk,” or canteen, at Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 28 out of Norfolk, Virginia.

A goofy, happy-go-lucky type, Caserta was usually the first to volunteer for “cleaning duty, aircraft wash or field day,” squadron mates said. Sure, he regretted breaking a leg at Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL School two years before, an injury that forced him to drop out of training to become a SEAL, but he was a trouper nonetheless.

“He was the kind of person that would drop whatever he was doing to help someone else. Day or night, rain or shine, he was always there,” hometown friend Destini Mohn said in a Facebook post on his memorial page.

“Brandon was home for a few weeks [in May 2018] and he was happy, making plans for Christmas,” said his father, Patrick Caserta, a retired Navy career counselor with 22 years of service. “He was a loving, caring, friendly kid.”

But the 21-year-old aircrew aviation electrician’s mate striker, or AEAN, did confide to friends via text that he was depressed about BUD/S and unhappy with his rating, which he felt forced to choose from a limited selection after leaving the SEAL training pipeline.

Read entire article: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/06/08/his-suicide-note-was-message-navy-way-he-died-was-exclamation-point.html