Former St. Mary’s High School student Danny Buck was so terrified of needles that his mother had to pin him down at the doctor’s office at 18 to get his shots for college.

So it was surprising to Elizabeth “Betty” Buck when her son decided he was enlisting in the Navy after school to become a medic. Less surprising to his mother, however, was that he would go on to thrive in that role, rising to the rank of Hospital Corpsman Second Class and earning the nickname “Doc” from the Marines he tended to.

But his 14 years of service took a dark turn when he was allegedly sexually assaulted by three seamen aboard a ship in Japan, which he revealed to his mother in an April 29, 2019, FaceTime call that ended up being the last time they spoke. Danny told his mom he “felt as though he lost all of his dignity and humanity,” said goodbye to her, hung up the phone and took his life. He was 39, leaving behind a wife and daughter.

“Over the five hours of FaceTime, Danny specifically asked me, ‘Mom, when you believe in something, you are a force of nature, and I am no longer strong enough to do this, but I need you to promise to work to make a change so that other children don’t grow up without parents,’” Betty Buck, who lives in Annapolis, recalled. “I will never forget the promise I made to my son.”

Joined by a half-dozen elected officials, Betty Buck cut the ribbon Wednesday on the new downtown Annapolis headquarters of the HM2 Buck for Hope Foundation, the nonprofit she started in his honor to raise awareness about sexual assault and suicide in the military.

The building on Duke of Gloucester Street, a historic house where Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice, once kept his law practice, has a striking hand-painted mural that might cause passersby to pause and ponder its meaning.

Crafted by artist Ginger Vander Haeghe, the symbolism is deeply personal to Betty Buck.

The painting features the white-gloved hands of a serviceman handing a folded American flag to a grieving civilian. “Until you’ve gone through that, you don’t know what it does to you, and every time you see it or hear that music, you go back to that moment,” said Betty Buck.

A rifle rises from between a pair of empty boots, dog tags dangling from the magazine and a sailor’s cap placed on the stock. It’s one way that soldiers memorialize fallen colleagues while overseas, according to Betty Buck.

Two ships cut through the sea, away from a ribbon in the center of the mural. Half of the ribbon is purple and half is teal, representing awareness for suicide and sexual assault, respectively. Danny Buck’s corpsman insignia is painted above the ship on the right side. Above the ship on the left is a more somber moniker.

A hand covers the mouth of a uniformed Navy sailor.

“It means, don’t tell,” Betty Buck said. “And that is still rampant.”

She maintains her son was prohibited from telling those closest to him about the abuse he endured. Rather than stay aboard the ship where he was assaulted, he chose his duty station at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. Betty Buck said her son was provided one off-base psychiatric appointment.

The Department of Defense recorded 8,195 reports of service members being sexually assaulted in fiscal year 2024, about a 4% decrease from the year prior, when there were 8,515 such reports, according to an annual report released by the federal agency.

Suicides among military personnel, meanwhile, have steadily increased over the last 10 years, according to the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. The vast majority, the organization reported, involve men 35 and younger.

Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley, Attorney General Anthony Brown, Prince George’s County state Sens. Joanne Benson and Malcolm Augustine and Anne Arundel County state Del. Dylan Behler — all Democrats — attended the ribbon cutting and championed the organization’s cause, as well as its leader, Betty Buck.

U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth said she’s been working with Betty Buck for years to raise awareness of sexual assault and suicide in the military. This week, she added amendments to the National Defense Authorization Bill that would require all branches of the military to develop modern tracking methods in hopes of preventing them.

“Some branches of the military are using spreadsheets,” Elfreth said. “The Army has a pretty sophisticated and modern tracking system.”

The nonprofit and its mural are less than a block from Annapolis City Hall.

Alderman Harry Huntley, a Democrat who represents downtown, has passed the mural-in-progress several times en route to City Council meetings.

His eyes welling up, he told the small crowd gathered Wednesday that the nonprofit’s cause was personal to him because his best friend died by suicide about six years ago.

He said the mural recalls a turn of phrase from former President Joe Biden, whose oldest son, Beau, died of brain cancer. Paraphrasing Biden, Huntley said, “The day will come when the memory of your loved one will bring a smile to your lips before a tear to your eye.”

“I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve walked by this mural in progress and had a tear come to my eye thinking about what you’ve gone through,” Huntley said. “But hearing so many of these wonderful stories here today, I feel like now we have this opportunity when I walk by, and I hope when all of you walk by, for it to bring a smile to your face.”