'They Let Him Fall Through the Cracks'

April 13, 2007 — -- On July 4, 2003, Carol and Richard Coons planned to reunite with their son, Master Sgt. James Coons, a career soldier who had seen action in Iraq in 2003 and during the first Gulf War.

Before their scheduled reunion, Coons, 35, reported having visions of a colleague killed in action, and had been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and acute stress disorder.

After taking an overdose of sleeping pills in Kuwait, he was sent to a military hospital in Germany. A week later he was transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and assigned a room in the Mologne House, an outpatient hotel.

But nearly four years ago, instead of holding the reunion they were expecting, Coons' parents found out their son was dead. Earlier that morning, a hotel clerk had found him hanging from a bed sheet in his room.

"According to their security-key passes, he entered his room and never left," Carol Coons said. Coroners would later state that James had been dead for at least two days.

A father of two and the noncommissioned officer in charge of the Army's 385th Signal Company, Coons was awarded a bronze star for his service in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. He had served in the military for more than 16 years, and family and friends have said the Army was his life.

In their first network television interview since their son's death, Carol and Richard Coons sat down with me to talk about their family's anger and quest for answers.

"They let him fall through the cracks," Richard Coons said.

The family is angry and in disbelief that no one at Walter Reed bothered to look for their son, whose overdose in Kuwait was labeled a "suicidal gesture," even after he failed to show up for a doctor's appointment July 1, 2003.

"He had three doctors' appointments scheduled. He didn't make any of those three appointments, and no one came to check on him," Richard Coons said. It took four days of phone calls from his wife and parents before hotel staff opened the door to his room -- and by then, it was too late.