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I think the idea here is that admitting that you have mental health issues is a good way to lose the good job you already have.

In my mid-20s (now many decades ago now), I got pretty depressed while going through the collapse of my first marriage and the resultant divorce. I even had thoughts of committing suicide.

However, I also realized that I was way too young and had way too many opportunities before me in life to be thinking that way and that I needed some help in getting back to a more realistic perspective on life.

So I self-referred myself to a psychiatrist and underwent about 6-9 months of weekly counseling sessions before we mutually agreed that the crisis had passed and I could discontinue seeing him. I never was prescribed any medication during the course of treatment.

I have never hidden this episode from people. (I don’t go around bragging about it either.) My attitude is that you would be considered pretty inconsiderate to your family and friends and just plain stupid if you had a significant physical illness/injury and deliberately decided not to get it treated. The same attitude should apply toward someone having mental problems.

I was lucky to be in the service and going to college at the time. So I didn’t have to worry about keeping my job, paying for medical services, or arranging my schedule so I could make my weekly appointments. A lot of people are not so lucky.

Our opinion columnist is making the case that Mr. Lubitz’ depression had broken or impaired him to the point where he was not responsible for his behavior and therefore, he is a victim along with the others who died on that French alpine mountainside. In short, the columnist is offering us a cloaked version of the criminal insanity defense argument.

I disagree.

Although supposedly depressed, Mr. Lubitz was obviously still a very high functioning individual. His depression had not disabled him. He was still able to function as a boyfriend, son, automobile driver, pilot, etc. He could still discern right from wrong. In short, he still had an operating moral compass. His actions, both before and during the event (it was not an “accident”), reflect a deliberate turning away by stages from the moral North Star.

Therefore, the pertinent question for me is why did he not have the strength of character to realize that he must not cross the threshold of that dark corridor of betrayal leading to his own suicide and the murder of 149 innocent passengers who had entrusted their lives to him?

His “sin” (if I may use that word) was one of having very poor character in a crisis largely of his own making. There were many exits on his long road to this tragedy. All he had to do was realize where he was headed and see the need to get off, even at the cost of his career as a pilot. Yet his self-centered grasping at a increasingly questionable future ultimately blinded him to the obligations each of us have to act responsibly towards others (if not towards ourselves) whenever we can.

For that profound and fundamental moral failure, he deserves the severest criticism among men and before the high judgment seat of God.

He was not the 150th victim.