It is Memorial Day Weekend and I've been thinking about what this holiday has meant to me in my life thus far. You know, when I was younger, I never really took to heart what Memorial Day meant. It's embarrassing to admit but as a teenager Memorial Day weekend was a weekend to hit the lake or attend barbecues and parties. Now that I'm a bit older and wiser, I finally see this holiday for what it is meant to be. It's a time to reflect the sacrifices of our service men and women and their families. We've lost 4,081 soldiers in Iraq and 507 in Afghanistan. There are other soldiers we are losing to this war and they're not included in the DOD's casualty numbers. Tonight I want to honor the men and women in uniform who have fallen victim to suicide. These soldiers are casualties of war and deserve to be honored.
More below the fold....
Crossposted at the EENR Blog
Last April, the Rand Corporation released a 500 page report and interviewed nearly two thousand Veterans in all levels of the Armed Forces. The findings were staggering. 19% of our soldiers have suffered a brain injury in Iraq or Afghanistan and 18% are currently suffering from PTSD or some other mental illness. The most frightening aspect of the report is that only half of these soldiers are seeking treatment from the VA. Here's a snippet from Raw Story:
Some 300,000 U.S. troops are suffering from major depression or post traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 320,000 received brain injuries, a new study estimates.
Only about half have sought treatment, said the study released Thursday by the RAND Corporation.
"There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, the project's co-leader and a researcher at the nonprofit RAND.
"Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation," she said in an interview with The Associated Press.
I don't blame the soldiers for not seeking treatment. I'm sure many of them are scared. I'm sure many of them don't want their diagnosis to negatively affect their career. How do we remedy this problem? How do we ensure that our soldiers do receive treatment for their injuries and illnesses? Do we even have a policy where veterans are forced to see a doctor after they return home from combat? Shouldn't we have some sort of requirement where a soldier needs to have a number of checkups in the years after they return home from service abroad?
The Bush Administration and the VA have been working hard to keep the truth about our soldiers committing suicide quiet. Just a couple weeks ago, an email by the Deputy Chief of Patient Care Services for Mental Health Ira Katz surfaced showing an effort to keep the numbers of suicide attempts out of the media. Every member of Congress and every single American citizen should know that 1,000 American soldiers attempt suicide every month while at the VA. Here's the text of the email from Katz:
Shhh!
Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?
I know, it's disgusting and shameful. I can't believe we'd want to hide such a HUGE problem. Don't we want to help save their lives, rather than ignore the crisis that soldiers are committing suicide?
Last year, 121 soldiers committed suicide, which was a 20% increase from 2006. From the years 2001-2005, 430 soldiers committed suicide. That number is the most recent I could find, and unfortunately I'm sure we've lost many more soldiers to suicide the past couple years. Penny Coleman, a widow of a veteran who fell victim to suicide, wrote a piece back in 2007 about the number of suicides among our veterans from the wars in the 20th and 21st centuries. Here's a snippet from AlterNet:
Earlier this year, using the clout that only major broadcast networks seem capable of mustering, CBS News contacted the governments of all 50 states requesting their official records of death by suicide going back 12 years. They heard back from 45 of the 50. From the mountains of gathered information, they sifted out the suicides of those Americans who had served in the armed forces. What they discovered is that in 2005 alone -- and remember, this is just in 45 states -- there were at least 6,256 veteran suicides, 120 every week for a year and an average of 17 every day.
One thing we all need to understand is that Veterans who served in wars decades ago are still falling victim to PTSD today. The fact that we have a record number of soldiers suffering from mental illnesses caused by the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, leads me to believe that we're going to see thousands more deaths by way of suicide in the decades to come.
I recently penned a diary about Travis Triggs, a soldier who did four tours of duty and suffered from PTSD. Triggs was kept on 12 medications and kept getting sent back to serve in Iraq even though he was struggling with PTSD. He ended up killing his brother and then himself. The Veterans for Common Sense, who are in the midst of a class action lawsuit against the DVA, believe that multiple tours of duty are a huge factor in PTSD affliction. Why was Triggs sent back to Iraq again and again even though he was obviously suffering from PTSD? How can we do this? If they're suffering from a mental illness like PTSD, they should not be sent back to combat. It will only worsen their condition and could result in suicide like it did with Triggs. This has got to stop.
These Men and Women are Heroes
It pains me to see young service men and women struggling with mental illnesses and succumbing to its overwhelming power. These men and women served honorably and deserve the respect and gratitude of every citizen in our country. I hope that one day, the DOD will change the practice of leaving these victims out of the list of casualties of war. These men and women were sent on multiple tours of duty and came back home and fought a mental illness caused by the traumatic experiences they went through. They are American heroes that need to be honored and remembered by all of us. I hope you'll join me in sending your condolences to the family and friends of our fallen soldiers to suicide.
RIP