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Mellisa Harris-Perry: Welcome back to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. This weekend, hundreds of military families gathered in Arlington, Virginia, for a unique program designed to provide support for relatives of the fallen.

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Bonnie Carol: My husband was killed in an army plane crash along with seven other soldiers.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: In 1992, Bonnie Carroll lost her husband, Brigadier General Tom Carroll.

Bonnie Carol: I didn't have a network connecting with others who would just understand, just get it. I tried going to other grief support groups for different circumstances of loss, but those weren't my people, and that wasn't my experience. It wasn't until I got back in touch with those other families who had lost their loved ones in the same crash that I found that connection. Wow, it was amazing.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Bonnie started an organization to help others make those connections. It's called Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, TAPS. In the 28 years since its founding, the organization has helped more than 100,000 relatives of fallen service members manage their grief.

Bonnie Carol: We may come into that family's life at a time when they need help just getting through the funeral. We have family members who are struggling to tell their children how their loved one died. We have wonderful staff, who are trained, who are survivors themselves, who can come alongside newly bereaved families and gently, compassionately walk them through those early days to meet them where they are and to recognize that it's a different journey for everyone.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: One of TAPS's signature programs is the Good Grief Camp, where kids who have lost a military parent come together. They play, they talk, they create artistic projects, and each is paired with an active duty service member who serves as their mentor.

Sergeant Daniel Davenport: The one thing that they all have in common is that when they come to the camp, they've all acknowledged that they thought they were the only one going through their experience.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Sergeant Daniel Davenport is one of the Good Grief Camp's military mentors.

Sergeant Daniel Davenport: While we make sure that we highlight nobody's experience is the same, even if your sibling is suffering the same loss, we understand that what they're going through, they're not alone. When they realize that, it seems like a big relief to them to realize like, "Hey, I've met other people who understand what I'm going through."

Technical Sergeant Clinton Trewen: I've been a mentor for upwards of 50 mentees over my time with TAPS.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Technical Sergeant Clinton Trewen is the organization's most recent military mentor of the year.

Technical Sergeant Clinton Trewen: My role is to be a supportive mentor and buddy with a child of a fallen service member. We support them by helping them with how they can best cope with those emotions and feelings that they have as they go through their grief journey. Understanding just some of the different things they might be experiencing and seeing. Then, also, we are that support system to show them that the military is still here for them. We care about them, and we want them to know that they have a support system that they can always trust and go to anytime they need it.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Sergeant Davenport told us that he sees what a big difference this camp makes for the young people who are part of it.

Sergeant Daniel Davenport: Kids miss graduation to come to camp, like their high school graduations, they come to camp to graduate here. I believe that that is a show of what we're doing in this program and the bonds that we're building.

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Mellisa Harris-Perry: Now, the organization has seen a shift in recent years with far fewer combat deaths. More than a quarter of the newly bereaved military families they supported last year were grieving the loss of service members who died by suicide. I spoke with [unintelligible 00:04:21] who lost her husband Daniel in 2016 and found support from TAPS.

Speaker 5: My husband was Corporal Daniel [unintelligible 00:04:30] in the US Army. While he was in the service, he was an 11B infantryman, and he absolutely loved the army. He planned on making it a career. In his free time, he loved to surf and watch soccer. He actually was a season ticket holder to the Orlando soccer team. He absolutely loved computers. He was getting his degree in computer science to be able to code and other things that I didn't really understand. He absolutely loved being a father. When we started deciding that we wanted to have kids, he expressed that he wanted a daughter, and that is what we got for our first child.

He had that little girl with all the love, and she had him wrapped around her finger, and he just loved playing with our children. He was just the most amazing person.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: You lost him to death by suicide back in 2016.

Speaker 5: I did. Yes, ma'am.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: How old were the children at that time?

Speaker 5: My daughter was 5 going on 6 a month later, and then my son was 11 months old.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Maybe especially for your daughter, maybe less for still such a baby at 11 months, what were their experiences in those early months and early years?

Speaker 5: She did not understand. At such a young age, it was a lot of creative explaining. I'm not really sure when the acknowledgment or understanding that suicide involved taking your own life really came into acknowledgment, but we never really hid it. She just expressed missing him. Then, throughout the year, she's asked a lot of questions, but at the beginning, it was very sad and missing him. She just expressed a lot of confusion around the whole thing.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: How did you first encounter TAPS?

Speaker 5: With TAPS, during my husband's service, sadly, we lost a lot of friends to combat, accidents, suicide, so I had a lot of friends who knew about TAPS because they were also survivors. Shortly after my husband died, a friend of mine called TAPS, told them about me and told them that they should reach out to me. Two or three days after my husband's passing, I got my first phone call from someone on their survivor care team, and they were there to support me. Originally, I did not think I even qualified for anything like that because he was a veteran, and he was no longer on active duty or reserve status, so I wouldn't have even reached out had it not been for my friends.

Yes, they just called right away and were there to support me and help me through a lot of things.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Yes, when you were talking about feeling confused, certainly, we can see the confusion in our children, but it is just confusing, right, for everyone that kind of loss.

Speaker 5: Yes, there is always the question of why, which will be a question that can never be answered because you can't talk to the person who was going through it any longer, and so often, we miss the signs leading up to suicide. While we can look back and piece together pieces that made us realize we miss the signs, the why question will always linger. I would say TAPS is probably one of the sole reasons I've been able to grapple with it. I remember going to my first event, and I fully went completely for the children. That was why I was going. I knew they needed something. When I got there, I fully felt like I was going to be the black sheep. I was going to be the only one of my kind.

I was going to be with a lot of active duty losses, combat losses. I just knew I was going to be different, and within the first half a day there, I knew I wasn't different, and I knew I wasn't alone.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about Good Grief Camp. I know Alexis has been part of it. Tell us about Good Grief Camp and what a difference it made for Alexis.

Speaker 5: I fully believe Good Grief Camp is one of the single greatest things ever created. To hear Alexis' love for Good Grief Camp and even Lucas, my youngest who only started going to good grief camp within the last couple of years, their excitement to go and their excitement to be around children, as they put it, who are just like them. At Good Grief Camp, they're able to learn coping skills that are just not taught in everyday life. My daughter has learned how to utilize writing and journaling at the age of 8 to express her feelings. My son colors and uses that as an outlet to explain his feelings. Good Grief Camp gives them a place to laugh.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: [unintelligible 00:10:29], thank you so much for being so forthright and open and having this conversation with us. [unintelligible 00:10:36], thank you so much for joining The Takeaway.

Speaker 5: You are very welcome and thank you for having me.

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Mellisa Harris-Perry: Now let's hear from [unintelligible 00:10:50] daughter, Alexis, about the loss of her father and what TAPS means to her.

Alexis: It's basically a program where we do things that talks about the situations we've been in and our story and we do events with each other. Then, we also have group where it's our age group, so we usually like the same topic and stuff. We do activities like coloring or [unintelligible 00:11:21] and stuff, creative ideas or fun things, but in the mix of it, it's telling us how we should not feel alone and that it shouldn't be weird to have all these emotions and that we lost someone in the military. I was like, there is a lot of people that lost someone by suicide and that understand how I feel.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Tell me how it made you feel to know that there were other people sharing some of your experiences.

Alexis: It made me feel more included and I wasn't an outcast and it made me very happy knowing all these people, but it also made me sad because I knew it was a very painful experience, and to see all these people that have gone through it, it's just like, wow, all these people have been hurt and have been lost and have too many emotions to deal with that I've gone through the same too.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: What are some of the things that come to you about the ways that you remember your dad?

Alexis: Every single TAPS event, my mom tells me something different because I ask a bunch of questions and stuff and she said he was a very kind person and he liked going places and stuff. I actually found out a few months ago that he likes surfing, [unintelligible 00:13:05] going with the flow. I really like the water and he really likes the water too.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: What do you want people to think about on Memorial Day?

Alexis: I don't want just people at TAPS to think about, I want everyone to think about all these people that have had families or very good friends, also as family, how there's so many people that have gone to the military that have just died and there's so many people we have forgotten about. There's a whole wall in Washington, DC, walls of soldiers' names, of how they served in World Wars and Vietnam. I just want everyone to think these people had families and friends that care about them so much and they just are like, "Bye," hoping that they'll see them again after the war, but really you didn't, and I just want people to think about the sadness those people had to go through.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: I know you got a chance to give an award to your mentor, but is there anything you want to say to your mom?

Alexis: I just want to tell her thank you of how hard it was for her and now that I realize being a single parent isn't that easy [chuckles] because she had to go through all that stuff also, including me and [unintelligible 00:14:35] [chuckles] and how a pain in the butt we are.

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Alexis: I just want to tell her being a single parent is not hard, but also being a person that had to go through finding some stuff and doing things she never had to do. It's just the definition of brave, and she's a hero because, without her, I probably would've never met TAPS and never met the people that I did that helped me get where I am. I'm just really thankful I have her with me and that I hope I never lose her.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: She is the definition of a hero, and Alexis, so are you. Thank you so much for joining us on The Takeaway.

Alexis: Thank you.

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Mellisa Harris-Perry: When we come back, a story about the families formed by members of the TAPS community.

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Mellisa Harris-Perry: Welcome back to The Takeaway this Memorial Day. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and we've been discussing TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.

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Seargent Daniel Davenport: My name is Sergeant first class Daniel Davenport, and I am a mentor with the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: This year marks Sergeant Davenport's 20th year in the army and his ninth year serving as a mentor for the kids at TAPS's Good Grief Camp. He says he's got something in common with these kids.

Seargent Daniel Davenport: I did not know my father growing up. I've actually never met him. When I was in 10th grade, I found out that he passed away in Texas, and I grew up in California. This varies from a military loss. My father didn't serve in the military, at least not that I know of, but there are kids in the program who never met their loved one because they were a baby, and so they're remembering their loved one or honoring their loved one based on stories from others and pictures.

I don't even have pictures of my father, so I can relate to them on that level of trying to remember someone or thinking about why do I do the things that I do or what kind of person will I be? Because we often look to our parents to understand like, hey, my mom did this so that speaks to why I'm doing this or I feel this way. I relate to them on that level.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Working with these young survivors helps Daniel too.

Seargent Daniel Davenport: TAPS and these mentees help me be a better version of myself because if you actually commit to what you're doing, if you listen to the grief work that we're doing, a lot of us as military mentors, we've suffered losses and we didn't know about this program, and the loss doesn't always have to be a military member because the lessons and the tools that we're sharing are beneficial in any loss. Being in this program allows us to go through the grief process ourself, and you have to be vulnerable yourself to demonstrate that to the kids. I've cried in our Good Grief camps. One of the other mentees that's not assigned to me, but that's my mentee.

I'm actually talking to her today to see how she's doing, but she told me when she saw me cry at one of our first camps, that was something that really impacted her because I'm 6'1" about 240. This big Black guy, this manly man is crying, and so if he can do that, then I can do that, and it's safe for me. Hearing these things and understanding the impact that it has on them impacts me and the type of person that I want to be. It's affected how I conduct myself at work with my soldiers, it affects how I conduct myself at home with my family, and it affects how I conduct myself in TAPS dealing with the other mentors, the other mentees, the staff, just everybody.

As well as I've gained so many families because that's at least the relationship between me and my mentees. We become family. We get to a place where we have a relationship and a bond that we check in on each other, that if we're in town, we're meeting up to see each other, we're checking in to see how people are doing. We're reaching out if we're struggling. It's the thing that we say in TAPS is it's a family none of us wanted to be a part of, but we're glad we're here.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Sergeant Davenport told us about Alexis, his very first mentee, and just a note, this is a different Alexis than the 11-year-old Alexis [unintelligible 00:19:46] we met earlier.

Seargent Daniel Davenport: This Memorial Day will be nine years but it feels like a lifetime. Alexis is my daughter. I am her bonus dad as she calls it, and with her family, it's the entire family. Her mother, that's my big sis because she's older than me. We banter about her being older than me but that's my big sis. I have relationships with the entire family that don't include her having to be there because of the bond that we have. She just recently turned 24 in April and she got married a few weeks before that. She messaged me and said that she wanted to talk. I called her and so I remember her voice and she said, "Hey, Daniel. How are you doing?"

We got through the pleasantries and she said, "I was talking to one of the family friends and she had just went to a wedding and she saw this really cool thing where they had a person carry the service members' flag down the aisle behind [inaudible 00:21:01] and I would love if you would do that for me." I, of course, was speechless. At her wedding, I was honored to carry her father's flag down the aisle behind her and her mother as a representation of him and his presence still in her life and honoring him and his sacrifice. I was able to represent him to her and her husband and the rest of her family.

Mellisa Harris-Perry: Now, if you love a wedding as much as we do, go check out our Instagram @thetakeaway. We've got pictures from Alexis' wedding there. Sergeant Davenport also took a little time to tell us what Memorial Day means to him and what he hopes others will think about today.

Seargent Daniel Davenport: What I hope people are thinking about this weekend is, first of all, the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day because it matters. We're not honoring me, the veterans who are walking around, we're honoring those who aren't, and that is a big difference. I hope people are thinking about the difference. Then, once they think about that difference, what I hope that they're doing is amid their barbecues and summertimes and parties and vacation planning, that they think about the reason that they're able to do all of that because of the people that we're honoring this weekend. I don't take away from those who don't know.

Hopefully, they'll get to the point where they can do something to honor the people who gave the ultimate sacrifice and even the ones who died by suicide. They still serve and we need to remember them as well because we don't know what they were going through that led to them taking their own life. Whether it's a thank you, whether it's a moment of silence, whether you stop by the cemetery, whether you think groups or people that you see honoring their loved ones, something that says, "Hey, I recognize the sacrifices that were made that allow me to do the things that I'm doing today." That's what I hope they're thinking about.

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Mellisa Harris-Perry: Our thanks to Sergeant first class Daniel Davenport for joining us on this Memorial Day. Okay, everybody, we're so happy that you took some of your Memorial Day and spent it with us. Thanks again for talking with us. Remember you can call at 877-869-8253. 877-8-MY-TAKE is our number. Call us about anything. Thanks for being with us. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and this is The Takeaway. Join me right back here tomorrow.

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