ARIZONA—Robin Andersen says she didn't go to a roundtable discussion of veterans' issues featuring Congresswoman Martha McSally with the intent of giving the Republican senate nominee a bracelet that memorializes the life of Anderson's son, a Navy SEAL who killed himself following a long struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.
"I didn't know I was going to bring it up," Andersen said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon.
Andersen's life is as tightly intertwined with the U.S Navy as are the threads of a dockline rope. She served three decades in the Navy; the father of her son was a Navy SEAL. And then her son, Rob Guzzo, became a Navy SEAL, too, serving in Ramadi.
But she says upon Rob's return to the United States in 2007, she noticed he wasn't the same man who had left for bootcamp circa 2003. Rob feared seeking treatment, she said, for PTSD and traumatic brain injury (TBI) through government channels because of the stigma often attached to those issues.
Years of being in and out of therapy and receiving bulk medications from the VA in the mail sometimes seemed to help, and sometimes didn't help at all. The cycle of ups and downs crashed to a tragic halt in late 2012.
"On Veterans Day 2012, he put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger," Andersen said with remarkable straightforwardness, but hints of pain noticeable on the edges of her voice nonetheless.
"Things were kind of a blur after that for a little bit."
Roughly two weeks after her world came crashing down, an old friend of Rob's who was working at the Washington Post reached out.
"My vision had always been that—my son was gone. There was nothing that I could do about that. But I could tell his story. And I could raise awareness of PTSD, and hopefully, prevent someone else, another veteran, from taking their life."
"That first interview was very difficult because I had to say, you know, 'My son committed suicide.' It was hard to say the word, and just talk about, but … I did. My message at that point in time was Rob was not the first Navy SEAL to commit suicide, and he wasn't going to be the last."
Rob's story was told through video by the Post and in a documentary on the History Channel.
By his request, Rob's remains were cremated. So in order to afford a small memorial for her son near San Diego, Anderson raised money by selling about 200 small metal bracelets with her son's birthday and the day of his departing etched on it, along with the line, 'Not all wounds are visible.'"
As a Navy veteran and the child of a member of the Air Force, Andersen has seen and lived much of the country. She moved to Arizona about two years ago.
It was just a few days ago, however, she saw a Facebook post asking for interested veterans, especially veteran women, to come to a discussion not only with McSally but also with Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst. McSally is the only woman combat veteran serving in the House, and the same is true for Ernst in the Senate.
"Just really as a citizen, as a voter, I wanted to get some basic information, get a feeling from her as to who she was and what she was all about. I thought if there was any issue I would want to address—not specifically my issues as a veteran myself but as a mom whose son was a veteran who succumbed to PTSD—and I always wear his bracelet. So I just happened to have it on. And just through a spur of the moment kind of thing, I just wanted her to have it."
After McSally and Ernst had given an introductory talk about the veterans issues they were working on in Congress, the visitors at the roundtable introduced themselves, when Andersen made her spur of the moment gift.
"Oh my gosh, that's beautiful, that's beautiful," McSally said, obviously touched by Andersen's story and gift, as the room burst into applause.
Hours later, as McSally and Ernst concluded a tour of a helicopter assembly and production plant in Mesa, the bracelet was still on the congresswoman's wrist, and Rob's story was still on her mind.
"Unbelievable," McSally said.
"He took his own life after surviving combat, surviving PTSD and traumatic brain injury. I can't even imagine—I can't even imagine how his mother survives every single day. But I'm inspired that in her grief, she's chosen to turn that into action, that she wants to make sure people know what happened to her son, and the trauma of what he experienced, and he ended up taking his own live even though he survived the enemy."
"It was a pretty gut-wrenching moment when she handed me this bracelet. I'm very honored to have it, and I will continue to fight every single day when I'm in the Senate for people like her son, and their families, and others that are out there right now who are suffering"
It was the kind of endorsement that doesn't often make the front pages of newspapers, yet somehow still stands out.
"I hope she will be elected, and use the position one day to make decisions that will help veterans, and I don't expect her to wear it all the time," Andersen said. "But certainly, if she comes across it, she won't forget his story, and the other 20-some odd veterans who take their lives every day."
McSally faces Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in the November general election for the senate seat recently vacated by the retirement of Republican Jeff Flake.