'We feel we had to do something'
HARMONY — Deb Smith lost her son, an Army veteran, to suicide.
More than 200 golfers turned out Saturday to help her remember Andrew “A.J.” Smith and raise awareness and funds to combat veteran suicide.
“We feel we had to do something to help other families,” explained Smith, who started the AJ's Stop 22 golf outing in 2016. Smith said statistics show an average of 22 veterans commit suicide in this country every day.
The fifth annual outing was held at Strawberry Ridge Golf Course, two miles north of Harmony.
According to his mother, A.J. Smith joined the U.S. Army shortly after his graduation from high school in 2008 and was deployed to Iraq in 2010. While there he saw combat as part of the infantry contingent attached to a tank striker force.
After leaving the service, A.J. Smith was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Deb Smith said her son became a firefighter in Columbia, S.C., and was injured on the job in 2015. He was told he could never work as a firefighter again, she said.The loss of his dream job sent A.J. into a deep depression and brought back all his war experiences, she said. He took his own life in 2016 at age 28.“After he got hurt he didn't get much help from the VA, other than to feed him drugs,” she said. “He wanted to get help in January, and they said they couldn't see him until March. He took his life in February.”Sue Hazenstab, the manager at Strawberry Ridge, said the golf course hosted the golf outing for the fifth year because Jim Smith, Deb Smith's husband, has worked in the pro shop for 19 years.Deb Smith said this year was expected to be the biggest ever with 230 people signed up to golf.She said in the last four years, AJ's Stop 22 had raised $65,000, which was donated to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
