I am here to tell you the story of my friend, Robert “Rob” Lahar Jr. He was a Marine Veteran, Firefighter, Father, Uncle and mentor. I met Rob around 2015 as we were both volunteer firefighters in Central Texas. Rob was a very pleasant person to be around. He was very quite until you got to know him. He was gentle, sweet and very intelligent. When he joined the Fire Department after I did I very quickly learned that he would become a leader. He acted like everyone’s dad helping them along the way and would even provide shelter for them to get back on their feet from time to time. In late 2020 I signed up for the Swiftwater rescue technician course so I could become certified. This class is notoriously difficult, and I couldn’t believe I signed up for it. The first day I showed up was all classroom work but I realized I was the only female there with about 25 guys. I wasn’t scared but I did mention Rob and his wife G that night. The next day as I am getting ready to jump in the water I look up and who do I see coming down the hill at the New Braunfels city chute? Rob Lahar. He took a day off from work at the VA Office to come give me tips and to hang out with me so I wouldn’t feel alone. He also would snap photos of me throughout the day like he was a proud father and so that I could have memories of the day I did something difficult and succeeded. Rob and his family quickly became family to us. They treated our girls like their own. It wasn’t often that you would see Rob upset or in a sour mood. He was very gentle natured which people often became surprised when they learned he was a marine. In 2016 he responded to a balloon accident in Maxwell Texas that killed 16 people. Ever since that day Robs PTSD seemed to get worse. His bad days were few and far between though until in June of 2022 both Rob and I responded to a motor vehicle accident that involved our own fire departments apparatus. The accident killed two of our firefighters, Assistant Chief Jonathon Coco and his little brother Firefighter Hunter Coco. To Rob it was like losing a child. It was truly a struggle for us all at MCVFD coping with what we saw that day. I tried to make sure he was okay and for the most part he was very good about hiding his mental health issues. I am very good at controlling my emotional health but I have to remember we are all different and deal with things differently. That was we are traumatized with throughout our lives can shape our mental health ands the way we react. He felt like because he was a marine and a man that he couldn’t let others know how bad he was struggling. He was also the leader of his family and didn’t want to let them down. He ended up getting divorced. If only there wasn’t a stigma over mental health and people felt more comfortable seeking assistance. On March 14, 2024, Robert Lahar Jr. took his own life. It was utterly shocking to say the least. I still to this day have trouble wrapping my brain around the finality of it all. How can someone with so much good in his heart feel that taking his own life was the only way to stop his suffering? How could he do this to his kids? To be completely honest; until I lost Rob, I also felt negatively about anyone that had chosen to take their own lives. I perpetuated the stigma. I was a part of the problem. I thought what a sick thing to do. How could you just transfer all that pain over to the people you love? How can you be so selfish? Then, we lost Rob. A man that had nothing but love in his heart. A man that would oftentimes go without so that others could have. A man that fought for our country. A man that served his community as a volunteer firefighter. A man that would jump in front of a bullet for his family. A man that was just so genuinely filled with goodness. It made me realize that he more than likely did not want to die; he just wanted an end to the emotional pain he was experiencing. His PTSD overwhelmed his capacity to live his life. He didn’t want to feel like he was a burden to anyone. I feel like maybe, just maybe, if suicide or mental health wasn’t so stigmatized that he would have tried to get help. He would have felt comfortable talking about his issues. He would have been okay with letting those around us know that although he was smiling and cheerful that on the inside he was struggling. Maybe we could have done more. I hate that it took me losing someone I know to fully understand how negative it is for me to call someone like that selfish. That I could inadvertently caused someone to feel like they couldn’t talk about it or seek help. I vowed to keep his memory alive by fighting the stigma and raising my voice to help destigmatize mental health issues not only for men but everyone.

I am the mother of 2 beautiful 6 year old girls. I grew up in rural Southeast Texas with 2 sisters, a mom and a dad. I had no idea when I was growing up that we were poor. My parents did everything they could so we would never feel the effects of it, but the reality is we were “Angel Tree” kids. I specifically remember one year waking up on Christmas morning to a living room full of toys, a beautiful real Christmas tree and smiles on our parents’ faces. My mom worked as a paraprofessional and the teachers she all worked with got together to purchase our gifts that year because my dad became disabled and could no longer work. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I truly realized just how hard my parents worked to provide for us. As an adult I know they feel like they didn’t provide for us, but I grew up with a roof over my head, surrounded by love and protected. They gave me all the things I could ever need out of life. My mom is the real rock star here though. When my dad became disabled or was in the hospital for one of his many stays, she somehow held our family together. She would cook homemade meals nightly, bring all three of us to our sports and travel to Houston almost daily so we could visit with our dad. As a mother I looked up to her when it came to parenting my own children. I find myself modeling my motherhood after hers. While we didn’t have money we had love, lots of family and good memories. Last year, I bought a journal for her for mother’s day. The journal was for mothers and daughters to pass back and forth to fill out. When It was my turn to fill it out it prompted me to ask several questions about my mom that I always wanted to know. I asked her “If there was one thing you wish your parents would have done differently, what would it have been?” her answer was that she wished they would have provided more support for her when it came to college as she had a full ride due to sports but her parents never gave her encouragement and only expected her to help raise her siblings. She never went to college and to this day she regrets it immensely. It has always been a goal of mine to go back to school. I said I would when I was younger, but life stood in my way and bills had to be paid. One thing about me is not matter where I am I end up being the mother of the group. It’s what I do, I take care of people. Even when I became a volunteer firefighter the younger men and women firefighters would look to me for guidance. They knew I would always help steer them in the right direction. They knew I had their backs and would advocate for them and get them the things they needed. In the end, I just want my girls to grow up and be proud of me like I am of my mom and know that I did everything I could for them. I want them to be encouraged to seek higher education if that’s what they wanted. I want to make my mom proud by being the first generation to graduate college and break the cycle. In the end, I just want to live to my full potential.

My name is Samantha Lucas, and I will be a first-generation college graduate in my family. I have been in the Fire service for 9 years and in 2022, I was one of the responding firefighters to a motor vehicle accident that killed two of my fellow Maxwell Community Volunteer Firefighters in the line of duty. I began volunteering in the fire service because I had a passion to help others. I was an “Angel Tree” kid and others would adopt my siblings and I to provide Christmas for us because my father was sick, and our family was very low income. I watched paramedics on numerous occasions save my father’s life and it stuck with me. I saw them as heroes, and I wanted to be like that to someone else one day. I also saw the flip side of it when they tried to save my sister and couldn’t. I saw the passion they had and how hard they tried to save her. I feel compelled to pay it forward because of the kindness and generosity others showed me growing up. I joined Maxwell Fire in 2015 after volunteering for disaster relief due to the deadly Memorial Day floods. I fully immersed myself and eventually became a Firefighter, Swiftwater Rescue Technician, Secretary, Community Outreach Coordinator and now Public Information Officer. Our community is extremely small, so I focused a lot on community engagement and finding ways to get us out there and get the community involved in our events. In 2022, I was one of the responding Firefighters to a motor vehicle accident that involved a Maxwell Fire apparatus. On the way there, my heart was pounding because I wasn’t sure what I would find. I arrived on scene to find Assistant Chief Jonathon Coco and his little brother Firefighter Hunter Coco were no longer with us. It affected me immensely and to the point I questioned if I wanted to continue in the fire service after witnessing what I did. It was a very rough time in my life but seeing the community come together and the brotherhood displayed to support us after the incident made me want to continue on. I also began to notice the younger Firefighters started looking to me for guidance and I knew I couldn’t abandon them and that the way I would heal myself is by helping them. I would then go on to help plan their service, write their obituaries and dispatch their last alarms on the Caldwell County radios. In May of 2023 I was blessed to be able to attend the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend in Emmitsburg, Maryland as a MCVFD representative. I accompanied the Coco Family as our boys were being honored that year. I wish there was a way to convey in words how amazing it was to be amongst others that understand what we were going through. I met a Fire Chief from another department and when he asked where I was from I said “I am a volunteer Firefighter with Maxwell Community Volunteer Fire Department”. He said I like how you said “I am a volunteer” and not “I am JUST a volunteer”. I explained to him that I would be doing my guys a disservice if I said that because they weren’t JUST volunteers. They gave their lives in the line of duty serving our community and they didn’t get paid a single penny to do it. Their payment was knowing they were helping their community, feeling a sense of accomplishment and pride. It is a privilege to do what I do.