http://storycorps.org/listen/mark-and-jessie-edens/
Police Officer Mark Edens tells his daughter about a night when he had to deliver the news to a woman that her husband was killed in a car accident, and tell a child that his father wasn't coming home. The story interested me because I've had no shortage of moments in my life in which someone had delivered me terrible news, or had to comfort someone as they received bad news of their own. It's never easy to be the person who tells someone something like that, but those who can endure it, and do their best to help the loved ones process and accept it, are truly admirable people.
Possible questions:
How do you feel other people perceive you when you're on the job?
What was the most difficult or memorable moment in your career?
How did you break the news to his wife?
Why did you decide to tell the boy yourself instead of letting the mother handle it?
How do you feel about this part of the job, and your experiences with it?
1. Mark's first words in the story, “Most of my interaction with people was the worst moment of their life,” shows how aware he is of other people's perception of him, and what role he tends to play in their lives.
2. When he tells us about arriving on the scene of a car accident and identifying the body as someone he knew, the circumstances immediately becomes more personal, drawing the listener in.
3. He mentions how most people prefer to tell the loved ones about the accident and immediately leave, but he chooses to take her inside and comfort her, help her process the news. It seems as though he isn't simply doing this because he knows her, but because this is how he generally prefers to deliver bad news, even to strangers.
4. When Mark chooses to tell the child of the victim what had happened to his father, he accepts the responsibility of delivering something so heartbreaking to a child. He knows, in that moment, that they don't need to hear something so devastating from someone with tears in their eyes. They need to hear it from someone calm and strong, to lead by example, and since he was the person most detached from the situation, that someone was him.
5. He accepts the solemn duty of delivering a death message to someone because, despite it's unpleasant and often heart-wrenching nature, because it needs to come from somebody who can withstand the raw emotion of such an event, while still remaining a compassionate shoulder to cry on.
http://storycorps.org/listen/randy-and-judy-pilgrim/
Judy and Randy Pilgrim tell the story of their son, Lance, a Sergeant in the Army who returned home and was discharged for his abuse of prescribed medication to deal with his PTSD. He died of an accidental overdose shortly after returning home, and was denied a military funeral because of his dishonorable discharge.
As someone with members of the military in my family, and friends planning on entering the military, I always find myself dreading the possibility that a situation such as this could come to pass. However, my first thought is sympathy for the countless families who do go through this in the wake of every war, dealing with the physically and emotionally damaged survivors of the most confusing and scarring circumstances ever invented by man.
Possible questions:
What was the first sign, to you, that something was different about Lance?
How would you say he was different?
What lead to his discharge from the Army?
What were your feelings about the day leading up to his passing?
Did he receive a military funeral?
1. The line at the beginning of the story referring to when they tried to drive around a dead deer in the road and Lance broke down crying immediately pulls the listener in and puts a harsh depiction of PTSD up front.
2. When Lance told his father about how, in Iraq, they weren't allowed to let anything slow them down, so they ran over dead bodies in the street. This gives a first glimpse into the cause of his PTSD, and why the war effected him so greatly.
3. Randy describes his son after returning from war as, "almost helpless," compared to the strong, independent young man who had left, showing the transformation Lance underwent in the eyes of his parents.
4. Randy's reflection on the day before his son's death shows a crushing amount of regret and guilt, wishing that he could simply do it over again and offer his son more support in his time of need.
5. He says that they requested a military funeral, but, in light of his recent discharge, it was denied.
6. Judy tells of how the Army reviewed the facts and got his discharge reclassified as an honorable one, but it was two years after he had passed. Details such as these display the additional tragedy of the situation, that he had endured so much and done so much for his country, and because of the addiction he suffered from due to his psychological damage, he was denied the posthumous honor he deserved for his service and his sacrifice.
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