"I'm not going back to Iraq," Army Sgt. Benjamin Miller, 24,  told friends back home in Minnesota. And, indeed, he is not. Three days ago, he was buried, having committed suicide while home on leave. He had been scheduled to get out of the service in January but was "stop-lossed."

For several years,  I have covered the suicides of U.S. military personnel in Iraq or when they returned home.  Now it has become an epidemic.

In most cases, the news only emerges because a local reporter gets on the case. It happened again this week, with the reporter this time Elizabeth Mohr of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The "soldier suicide" epidemic in Iraq continues.  Another young American soldier, this one age 19, has apparently killed himself in Iraq, and at least two other reports  of "noncombat" deaths in the past week or so may fall in the same category.  

As usual, the latest case emerged from a local newspaper, while the Pentagon continues an investigation that usually leads to no public announcement.  I had followed this incident from the beginning, so the report of a likely suicide does not surprise me.  

He was Pvt. Eugene D.M. Kanakaole, who hailed from  Hawaii, and was assigned to the 87th Engineer Company.  According to the report this weekend in the Anderson Daily Herald in Indiana (where his mother once lived),  he was found in Balad, Iraq, on June 11 with a single bullet wound in his head.

For five years now, I have been chronicling the disturbing number of "noncombat" deaths in Iraq, often suicides, which usually come to light only due to the diligence of local newspapers.  As part of that effort, last August I briefly described  yet another case, involving a 20-year-old Texas woman named Kamisha Block, who apparently was much loved in her Vidor hometown.  It was said to be death by "friendly fire," which officially is fairly rare in Iraq, so I kept an eye on it for days, in case of an update.

Many more nonhostile deaths arrived, and so I forgot about Kamisha.  Last night, a reader sent me a link to a diary here by "greenies,"  which in turn led me to a news article in yesterday’s Beaumont Enterprise.    I'm updating and expanding that diary now.

Forget friendly fire.  It turns out that Spc. Block was actually murdered, and the killer, another soldier, Staff Sgt. Brandon Norris, then turned the gun on himself.

As if the "soldier suicide" problem wasn't bad enough already,  word has just emerged from ABC News and (the unlikely) Washington Times that our government is testing drugs with severe side effects, including promoting suicidal behavior,  on hundreds of  vets.  

In one case, the V.A. took three months to alert the veterans to the severe mental effects caused by one of the drugs, the controversial Chantix, used to halt smoking.

They are even using cash payments to attract patients into medical experiments "that often target distressed soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan," the newspaper puts it today.

In recent months, the issue of suicides among troops in Iraq, and returnees at home, has -- after long being ignored -- earned wide attention in the U.S. press.  Many newspapers have documented tragic examples in their own backyards, the only way they can really get recognized at all, and I have been documenting this in my writings here and elsewhere, and in my new book, for almost five years.

One of the latest cases emerged yesterday,  from Dennis Yusko at the Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union, and is all too typical.   Haunted by his experiences in the war,   the Iraq vet hanged himself next to a Bible, his Army uniform and a  statue of an angel, said his mother, who discovered the body herself  after he failed to show up to work for two days.

On Memorial Day weekend,  yet another American family is mourning the death of son who survived the war in Iraq -- only to fall victim at home from post traumatic shock disorder.  

The family lives in Corpus Christi, Texas, and the Marine was Chad Oligschlaeger, age 21, who committed suicide this week at the Twenty Nine Palms base in California.

While the cause of his death is still being investigated, family members say he  was taking eight different types of medications to deal with post traumatic stress disorder after serving two tours in Iraq.

Each one of the 4,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq is significant and tragic but one that doesn't yet count -- let's call him #4001 -- offers more of a clue to the true dimensions of the war than most of the rest.

Sgt. James W. McDonald,  26, who had undergone extensive head and facial surgery after an IED blast in Iraq last May, was found dead in his barracks apartment at Ft. Hood last November.   It has not been labeled suicide or accidental -- but also, somehow, not counted as related to his service in Iraq.

"I don't want it to be an undetermined cause of death," his mother, Joan McDonald of Neenah, Wisc., says.  "That is ridiculous."  She has asked Sen. Russ Feingold to help get some answers.

For almost five years, I have been chronicling the shocking number of suicides among U.S. troops in Iraq - and after they come home (it's a major component of my new book).  They now number well over 1000, and a new one has come to light this past week.  Or perhaps it was murder.

No matter, it can be said, as in the countless other cases, that he was "killed by Iraq."

Sgt. James Musack, 23, who hailed from Riverside, Iowa, died on  Nov. 21, 2006, north of Baghdad.  In an investigation completed in December 2007 -- but only received by family members last week -- the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command determined Musack died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  Oddly, he was due to finish his tour one week later.

As I've posted here recently (and written about for years over at Editor & Publisher), the true cost -- both human and financial -- of our current wars can best be viewed through the prism of physically and mentally wounded vets.  Now an AP report today puts that in stark relief.  It also updates some numbers on soldier suicides.  

About  29,320 troops are officially listed as wounded in action in Iraq as of yesterday, but as the story points out there have been 31,325 others treated for non-combat injuries and illness as of March 1.  "The Pentagon keeps two sets of books," said Linda Bilmes, co-author (with Joseph Stiglitz) of the startlingly important new  book, The Three Trillion Dollar War. "It is important to understand the full number of casualties because the U.S. government is responsible for paying disability compensation and medical care for all our troops, regardless of how they were injured."

Now here's the real kicker:  Veterans Affairs predicts it will treat 330,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 — a 14 percent increase over the 2008 estimate of 263,000 — at a cost of nearly $1.3 billion.

Peter Neesley died in his sleep on Christmas Day in Iraq last December -- but the dogs he rescued there live on, miraculously, back at his home in the USA.  I'm proud to say that I had at least a tiny something to do with it.

I wrote about Sgt. Neesley's passing right after Christmas, both at Editor & Publisher (which I edit) and on my blog, when few knew about it.  I also printed a photo of him taken recently with a group of kids at his old elementary school.  The outpouring of response I received from friends (near his Michigan home and scattered) and family was incredible.  Through their postings, many were able to get in touch with each other.  He was clearly quite a young man, someone who hailed from a very well-off area who had a lot of other choices in life -- but joined the military.    

But the story didn't end there.

For almost five years, I have been writing (I am the editor of Editor & Publisher) about suicides among our troops in Iraq or when they return home. I dare say that I did this earlier, and more often, than anyone in the "mainstream" media.  But Saturday, for the first time, I picked up the morning paper and discovered a tragic case close to home.

The front-page headline in The Journal News of White Plains, N.Y. read, "Marine struggled to reclaim life," with the deck, "Parents urge more help, services for returning veterans." Steven Vickerman was buried on Tuesday at Rockland Cemetery in Sparkill, which I know well.

The parents live in Palisades, N.Y. about five miles from my home on the west bank of the Hudson river about 15 miles north of Manhattan. A huge color photo showed Carole and Richard Vickerman at his grave site, with flowers and flags around it.

This weekend, in small towns and in our largest cities, in rural and in urban areas, Americans will be asked to step back and offer public recognition to the Veterans of America’s Armed Services. It is fitting and just that we do so for without them there would be no America.

For better or for worse, over the last two years I have gained a public political persona during my bid to represent the 29th Congressional District in Washington.  I want to take just a moment to discuss why I believe so many Veterans, especially those like myself who had never have been involved in politics before, are stepping forward to become involved in public policy at all levels of government. It’s simple really, the Congress has fewer veterans now than at almost any other time in the history of the country. Veterans are under represented by a huge percentage. As a direct result, the benefits which all Veterans earned and deserve are being denied, compelling them to get involved. What’s more, those in power who have never worn a uniform delight in standing in for photos with Veterans -- all the while attacking the service records of those who did and who disagree with them.