Last month, Trump repeatedly claimed Iran had agreed to all of his demands, which to this day appears completely baseless. His rhetoric about the war has been consistently, remarkably detached from reality.
At one point, he claimed his own vice president had departed on an airplane to Pakistan to negotiate an end to the war. Except JD Vance was still on terra firma (and ultimately didn’t go).
When I think of suicide, I don’t think of annual training slides, 22 pushup challenges, or the “thoughts and prayers” from social media posts. Instead, I think about the phone call with my mom. I think about needing to call her because I had just been told that my friend had taken his own life.
I think about the concern in her voice when she paused to ask me if I was OK. I think of the cold, wet mud on my knees when I fell to the ground next to my truck and began to sob into the phone because I couldn’t answer.