One Young Life, One Unbearable Loss

Alex Miller was 23 years old.

Originally from Miami, he moved to Israel, served as a combat soldier in the IDF, was wounded in a 2022 car-ramming attack in the West Bank, endured rehabilitation, and then returned to serve beside his comrades. After his discharge, he moved back to the United States. Last week in Miami, he died by apparent suicide after struggling with post-traumatic stress connected to his military service.

His story is unbearable because it is singular: one young man, one father’s only child, one life that can never be replaced.

It is also unbearable because it is not singular enough.

A Crisis Too Large to Ignore

The Times of Israel reported that suicides and suicide attempts among IDF soldiers and veterans have surged since October 7, 2023, and the wars that followed. At least 60 active and reserve soldiers reportedly died by suicide between October 2023 and April 2026. A Knesset Research and Information Center report found that 279 active soldiers attempted suicide between January 2024 and July 2025. Combat soldiers made up 78 percent of suicide cases in Israel in 2024, a dramatic rise from prior years.

Behind every statistic is a person whose pain became too much to hold alone.

Courage Does Not Make Trauma Disappear

We need to say something plainly: courage on the battlefield does not protect a person from despair afterward. Loyalty to one’s unit does not erase trauma. Love from family, even deep and devoted love, does not always reach the places where shame, grief, fear, and helplessness have taken root.

That is not a failure of love. It is a warning about what trauma can do.

It is also a warning about what can happen when a person leaves a world of mission, danger, brotherhood, and constant vigilance, and returns to a civilian world that expects him to simply resume life.

Waiting for Crisis Means Waiting Too Long

For too long, suicide prevention has relied heavily on a crisis model: wait until someone is in imminent danger, then try to intervene. Crisis lines, emergency rooms, therapists, psychiatrists, commanders, families, and friends all matter. They save lives. But if our only serious response begins when a person is already at the edge, we are arriving too late.

We need prevention that begins earlier.

We need tools people can reach for at 2:00 a.m., before they are ready — or able — to call anyone. We need ways to help someone name what they are feeling before the feeling becomes too much to carry. We need practices that reduce emotional isolation, not just programs that respond to collapse.

That is the urgent space where new approaches are needed.

Emotional Literacy as Prevention

At PAIRS Foundation, our work has long focused on helping people safely express painful feelings before those feelings harden into disconnection, rage, numbness, addiction, violence, or despair.

One of the lessons we have learned across decades is that people are often not overwhelmed by feelings alone. They are overwhelmed by feelings they cannot name, cannot share, cannot make sense of, and believe they must carry by themselves.

The PAIRS Yodi App was created to help people practice emotional literacy and relationship skills........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)