was a six month wait. i told them this could be a reason why deaths are occurring. reporter: what did they say? i was met with the same negative feedback. reporter: in the past 12 months, the navy says seven sailers on the uss george washington have died, at least four by suicide. sailers say they brought in health resources after three suicides occurred in one week in april. one of those was xavier sander, just a year out of high school. his father says he will always be the family hero. he loved his job. he did his 12-hour shifts and how do you sleep on an aircraft carrier with smokes and smells during the day? so, he would with sleep in his car. it s just awful. no sailer should have even been living on that ship in those conditions. reporter: the master chief
later. he had just turned 19. and joining me now are xavier s parents, john sander and mary graft. thank you so much for joining us. i m so sorry that we are here and that xavier is not, and that we re talking about him being gone here. can you just tell us a little bit about your son, who he was, and why he wanted to join the navy? he was a great boy. he was always a leader. he started off in martial arts at the age of 5. received his second degree black belt, moved on from all that, played quarterback all the way through high school, graduated and enlisted into the united states navy. following in his grandfather s footsteps. mary, can you tell me a little bit about xavier?
not so much. he didn t reveal too much. he was too proud to say a lot was wrong. it was just, like, i don t like ship and basically too proud to say what was really going on there. did he tell you at all, john, that other sailors had died by suicide or suspected by suicide? he was the third in a week. he did not mention it. i did not know when we went to virginia to we found out that he had passed, and they didn t reveal that to me until i got home. and i saw some of the stories on the news. and it kind of made me angry. it made you angry. i think that s understandable. did were higher ups of course. were higher ups receptive to any concerns that xavier or