NORFOLK, Va. - Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner (D-Virginia) met with the command of the Mid-Atlantic Maritime Regional Maintenance Center (MARMC) this week. Both left with concerns about Sailors working in the unit under limited duty.
While the cases remain under investigation, the senators said it appears four Sailors assigned to the unit recently died by suicide.
Sailors are put in the unit and under limited duty when they are recovering from an injury or experiencing some sort of mental health issue, Kaine said. For some of the Sailors, it may not be clear how long they will be assigned to MARMC.
"The idea that you're in this strange duty center, without the folks that you may have been deployed with or served with on another ship, in this kind of area where there is no end point, raise a real red flag with me," Warner told reporters following the visit.
The mother of Kody Decker, who died by suicide in October, told News 3 he was on limited duty following a mental issue that led him to check in to a hospital in August. Following the hospital stay, he was moved from being assigned to the USS Bataan to MARMC.
"I think [Kody] just kind of lost purpose in his everyday," Melissa Will said. "He wasn't working on the equipment that he was used to and being around just the people. I would imagine there was a sense of sort of just loneliness, as well. You're in kind of a new environment, but there was just no structure."
Sen. Kaine said he also met with Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday about the suicides.
He said there seems to be a commonality between the suicides of Sailors assigned to the USS George Washington earlier this year as well as those at the MARMC. Another Sailor, Brandon Caserta, died by suicide in 2018. Kaine said he had wanted to be a Navy SEAL but felt bullied by his squadron command before he could try to get to that level.
Kaine said the Sailors in those cases appear to have thought they were going to be doing one job and then wound up doing something else.
"Are we giving them meaningful opportunities and a new sense of purpose and providing them with the services they need? I think that's the big question," said Kaine, adding discussions are continuing on the best way to properly address these issues.
Kaine also said he planned to further address how to better implement the Brandon Act in next year's defense spending bill. The Act is supposed to let military service members get immediate, anonymous mental health treatment, but advocates have said it's not being fully implemented.
"What can I do to put pressure on them to implement it faster?" Kaine said.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
