JAMAICA Defence Force (JDF) member Major Rosheide Spence has saluted the army for refusing to camouflage the reality of members within its ranks struggling with mental health challenges.

“I am happy to report today that in the military there is a clinic for psychiatry. I’m happy to report that we have employed counsellors, psychologists. I’m happy to report that…we’re developing the capacity across the military to detect, prevent, and treat certain conditions that affects human beings first because, make no mistake, I might have a badge, I might have a rank, but before that I am Rosheide Spence,” the army man told a recent mental health symposium hosted by the St Mary Parish Court.

Spence, who argued that the JDF is an organisation that “doesn’t speak” and is “steeped in secrecy”, said the army’s approach to mental health is a meaningful one for its members given the fact that the number of people battling this challenge in the society are indicative of an epidemic which has not spared military personnel.

“In 2018 one of our lieutenants killed his wife. Some months ago — I was overseas — there was a video of a young soldier in a police station begging for his life to be taken. He murdered his girlfriend… We can no longer hide behind the uniform [or] behind the badge. We can no longer hold that we are purely men of steel [becasue] we’re humans as well. We have families, children, and loved ones.

“So when I got the call in terms of being here, the first thing that came to mind was the badge. How can I speak about mental illness? Particularly in a military context when we are trained to be gladiators, to be hard, effective, to show no fear? I remember being in training…[and] we were told that on conclusion of training when you look in that mirror you should not recognise the person you were before,” said Spence.

He argued that it is important for loved ones of people facing mental health challenges to understand and fully appreciate when things are clearly going wrong.

“It is important for you to not isolate. It’s important for you to give support to those individuals,” Spence stated.

In the first of the two incidents referred to by Spence, former JDF lieutenant and physiotherapist Kyodia Burnett was sentenced to five years in prison on May 24, 2024 for the December 13, 2018 stabbing death of his wife, attorney-at-law Nordraka Williams-Burnett.

Originally charged with murder, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility due to severe mental illness.

In April of this year another member of the JDF, Damanice Tyrone Williamson, was charged with the murder of his 29-year-old girlfriend, Tanzanya Dunkley.

The police reported that Williamson claimed a “voice” told him to kill Dunkley during a dispute when she attempted to end the relationship at their home in Three Chains, Manchester. He subsequently turned himself in to the Mandeville police

When Williamson appeared in the Manchester Parish Court, Judge Anneil Coote-Guinness ordered a psychiatric evaluation and ruled that he should be remanded.