Marine's Mom tries to save lives after losing son to Combat PTSD

Davie Marine's suicide sparks mom's efforts to call attention to PTSD
Sun Sentinel
Mike Clary
January 12, 2014

"I didn't know. I just didn't know any of the warning signs," said Janine Lutz. "John served five years, we knew he had PTSD, but we didn't know what that meant."

For months after U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Janos Lutz took his own life, his mother found the pain unbearable and growing worse.

"I was spiraling down, sometimes not able to get out of bed," said Janine Lutz of Davie. "I just hurt too much."

On Sunday morning, one year to the day that the combat veteran died at 24, Janine Lutz was surrounded by several hundred people, including many military veterans, who showed up at C.B. Smith Park to pay tribute to her son and the way she has chosen to remember him.

The occasion was the PTSD Awareness Ride, an event that has provided a focus for her grief while inspiring similar activities in other parts of the country to call attention to the toll of post-traumatic stress disorder on military veterans.

Lutz hopes the Awareness Ride will become an annual event.

"This honors my son and his service," Lutz said of the several hundred participants, including many motorcyclists, who rode in a police-escorted caravan from Western High School in Davie, Lutz's alma mater, to the park. "He's got his brothers' back even though he is not here."
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