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Readers React: Why you should not think less of a person who has committed suicide

Notes and photographs are left in memory of Anthony Bourdain at the closed location of New York's Brasserie Les Halles, where he was the executive chef.
(Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
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To the editor: Until I read the roundup of reader letters on the deaths of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, I was under the impression that most suicides are caused by great mental anguish that most of us cannot comprehend.

It was a surprise to learn that many of the these people are simply uncaring about the sorrow they cause others, and we should demean their past achievements because they chose to end their own lives.

Problem is, I have trouble relating these readers’ ideas to the thousands of veterans who commit suicide each year. These veterans were volunteers who fought terrible battles in places most of us couldn’t point to on a map.

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Am I supposed think less of what they did in their lives because of how they ended them?

Arthur Klimeck, San Pedro

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