First Name: Jon

Last Name: Cauthen

Middle Initial: I

Date of Birth: 10/05/1950

Sex: Male

Martial Status: Married

Number of Children: Yes

Home Town: Blackshear, GA

Education Completed: Not Sure

Other Occupations:

Branch of  Service: Army

Highest Rank: PFC

Serial Number: N/A

Platoon: N/A

Age at Start of Service: 19

Years of Service: 2

Combat Veteran: Yes

Time in Combat: Not Sure

Place of Combat: N/A

Awards:

Date of Suicide: 07/1988

Suicide Method: 45 automatic

Veteran’s Story: After a few years he spoke some to me about his experience in VN, just in general, as it had to come up naturally. He appeared not to have any special post trauma, and took pride in his service, belonged to veteran’s groups, and identified strongly with our family citizen warrior, a six year veteran of WW2 (New Guinea) and year in Korea. He slept on the floor the first month he was back and didn’t talk much. He would go to Washington to the wall on veterans day and was in touch with some old friends. He became uncharacteristically very depressed over his failing marriage. He was being treated for depression and his older sister and I (also older) were confident he would not take his own life because he said not to worry he would never do that, because he had fine healthy children (son 16, daughter 12). He was normally a very outgoing family and civic minded person. He loved his friends and they loved him. He was funny. He loved children. We all miss him terribly and think of him always.

Submitted By: George M Cauthen

Relationship to Veteran: Sibling