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Blanchard also feared the loss of a pension that a court-martial might mean. He offered to resign if the Coast Guard would halt its probe, but on March 10, he was turned down. Three days later, Blanchard met with Vice Admiral Arthur Henn, the Coast Guard's No. 2 officer, to ask for time off. "His face was drawn and a little pale," Henn said. "He was mortified that he had caused such potential embarrassment to the Coast Guard and his family."
The next afternoon, Blanchard went into his suburban Virginia backyard, put the muzzle of his grandfather's Smith & Wesson revolver to his head and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The gun had misfired. He could have taken that as a sign he was meant to live. But Blanchard pulled the trigger a second time. The gun went off. He left no suicide note. A Navy psychological autopsy concluded that "his style seemed consistent with someone whose duty it was to shoulder the burden and assume responsibility," even as that style clouded his ability to keep his situation in perspective. "The emotional pain and shame that Captain Blanchard felt he had brought upon himself and the Coast Guard led him to choose suicide as a solution."
Coast Guard officials see the case as a freak tragedy with no larger lessons. Still, some in the Coast Guard are asking whether the institution should have let the potentially career-ending charges hang over Blanchard for so long. By comparison, when a top Navy admiral suggested during a breakfast with the press last year that U.S. servicemen charged in the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl would have been smarter to hire a prostitute instead, he was out of his job by dinnertime. "The stress level went up as it dragged on and on," Connie Blanchard says. "I've struggled with this, but I think he believed that was the best thing he could do for his family--to end this case by ending his life."