Arlington Cemetery gun shot victim identified
Our friends at the Army Times report that Army CID has identified the gun shot victim found at Section 64 in Arlington Cemetery last week as 92-year-old Air Force Colonel Robert Stanton Terril.
“Although we have not completely ruled it out in order to conduct a complete and thorough investigation, we do not suspect foul play at this point in the investigation,” said Chris Grey, spokesman for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, the lead agency investigating the death.
Terrill’s neighbors confirmed that his late wife, Helen, who died in 2009, is buried at Arlington. The cemetery’s online grave finder lists Helen Terrill as being buried in Section 64, where Terrill was found dead.
I hope the colonel found the peace for which he ached silently. However, I’d point out that suicide is never the right answer, no matter how attractive it seems at the time. I’m sure that the folks that the colonel left behind would agree.
Category: Who knows
May he rest in peace.
Sucide is never the answer or solution to any problems you may be facing. It may end the issues for you, but for those left behind…
This is so sad and tragic. I agree that suicide is NOT an option – EVER!!!
May he rest in peace
To all those who are thinking suicide .. Please talk to someone about it!!! Suicide leaves so many hurt ppl behind !!
Blue Skies !
Damn.
Rest in peace, Sir.
*removes hat*
I can understand the Colonel. My wife of 30 years passed unexpectedly and is buried at Arlington. I didn’t care about anything for a long time and expected to join her sooner rather than later. Happiness came my way so glad I didn’t do something stupid. But I miss her terribly.
I’m with you. My wife of 34 years passed away 3 months after I retired from the Navy. It isn’t just the emptiness behind you that hurts, it’s emptiness ahead.
My aunt died from cancer-related complications. My uncle OD’d a year later. He told me he could not bear to be without her.
It is NOT the answer to anything.
Suicide is an answer. It’s just the wrong answer. Putting aside moral and religious considerations, suicide is the single, most selfish act that one can commit. In seeking to eliminate one’s misery, the suicide creates just that for many others. Suicidal people think that they are different from the rest of us in some fashion. They aren’t. How many times in life do people think they can’t go on, only to be grateful later that they did? One size never fits all. Some get through with professional help, others get through in other ways. But suicide takes away all hope and leaves a legacy of heartache for others. It is the wrong answer.
2/17 Air Cav…With one suicide in my family and 2 in my circle of friends I agree. It left a lot of unanswered angst for those of us left to ponder what had happened to bring them to their decision.
Aw, man! RIP, sir. It’s never as easy as we think, is it?
Forgive my crassness, but the question remains as to how it was possible for the good Colonel to have shot himself.
Arlington, like DC, is a Gun-Free Zone. You mean those signs don’t mean squat to a determined individual?
Having said that, I have to remain in the minority that believes that suicide, in some cases, is justified.
I hope the Colonel found his peace, and I hope I’m never required to walk in those shoes.
He was old, 92, and wanted to go. It is sad.
GOD Bless him, his dear departed wife and entire family.
Nothing further.
Thank you Jonn. “I hope the colonel found the peace for which he ached silently.” I agree and I hope he is resting in peace. I do wish he had chosen another avenue, It is a shame the VA did not have counselors who could have helped. Or that he could have found some counseling or comfort in his community somewhere.
I’m willing to give the COL the benefit of the doubt to some degree. The article notes that he had no children. At age 92, it’s entirely possible that he also no longer had any close relatives; additionally, it’s possible that he was terminally ill and just decided to go out on his own terms rather than languish in a hospital.
” it’s possible that he was terminally ill and just decided to go out on his own terms rather than languish in a hospital.” – that is one case in which I could understand the choice.
May God have mercy and grant him the peace he apparently so desperately needed, but was unable to find on this earth.
Although I don’t believe suicide is an answer, I will agree with CS on going “out on his own terms.” Did a casualty assist case once for a very nice lady who’s 89 year old husband was heading out front when she asked if he wanted some lunch, said yes, walked out but never back in. She told me he couldn’t take the pain of the stomach cancer any longer. She understood but he was all she had left. No kids and no other family. May COL Terril rest in peace.
The article states that he had a surviving younger brother and sister-in-law as well as a number of close friends.
As MCPO says, he was old and wanted to go after having lived a long, full life.
I know my grandmother, the last of her and my grandfather’s generation in our family, was tired of it all as well, despite having both of her children and many grandchildren around. After my grandfather died in 1996, she felt that she was just marking time until the end. She died in 2000 when her heart gave out at age 88.
Although there are many ethical and logistic issues around assisted dying, I do wish people had an alternative to shooting themselves or other violent ways of ending things.
RIP Colonel Terril and thank you for your service.
RIP, sir.
I’ve been told that suicides are prohibited from burial in a national cemetery.
So, by committing suicide, did Colonel Terril forfeit the right to be buried with his wife at Arlington National Cemetery?
The Armed Forces Retirement Home(s), both the one in Washington, D.C., and the one in Gulfport, Mississippi, have experienced numerous suicides, most of which (so I’ve been told, whether correctly or incorrectly) happen after being informed of a diagnosis of terminal cancer.
Maybe Alzheimers or senile dementia might also be factors.
If, due to his self-inflicted homocide, Arlington National Cemetery won’t permit Colonel Terril to be interred there, then maybe his wife’s body will be exhumed and the two of them buried together in a location other than a national cemetery.
Fortunately, suicide is not a disqualifier. Here are the criteria:
http://www.cem.va.gov/cem/burial_benefits/eligible.asp