Arts & Healing Arts for Military Veterans By Amber Robinson Marine Vet Finds Healing Through Suicide Advocacy and Theatre When Marine Veteran, actor, director and now film producer, Floyd Strayer entered the service in 1975, he only planned to stay four years. He came from a military background, his father and uncles serving. His namesake and uncle, Floyd Strayer I, even served in India Burma during World War II. Like many recruits before him, Strayer’s original plan was to serve just long enough to get the military education benefits.
Strayer went back to San Diego to re-enlist for more time in the Marines, so he could extend his time in Okinawa to five years. He was married in 1979 and then did a full 21 years in the engineering tech field before retiring in 1996. In those two decades Strayer finished his Bachelor’s degree as planned. He was able to finish his Master’s degree with the GI Bill and went back to working in engineering tech services at Miramar three years after retirement. Strayer’s first trips to foreign places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Djibouti came as a civilian. The main component of his work was now training and overseeing service members doing what he used to do. Life was great for Strayer. He was even able to visit his son multiple times in Kuwait during his where he was flying C23s for the Army on deployment. “They would take him off the flight schedule every time I came in,” said Strayer.
“My family didn’t have what it took to put me through college,” said Strayer. “So I joined the Marines.” A year into his service he was sent to Okinawa, Japan. “I fell in love with Japan,” said Strayer. “I loved my job there, the Japanese people, their culture and then I met my wife.”
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For Strayer, family was his grounding force and stood for everything he held dear. But in 1999 Strayer and his family were shaken when his brother took his own life. Several years later in 2006 his niece also took her life. Shortly after, his wife earned a stay at the Sharp Mesa Vista Hospital for Counseling and Mental Health when she tried to drink herself to death. It was then that Strayer decided to get help. “I realized I was very depressed,” said Strayer. “And I realized I had not grieved my brother’s suicide.”
