Military Families Still Pay The Price

[serum114]

Military Families Still Pay The Price
by Bill Scheurer



Do you know that a US serviceman or woman still is killed every other day in Iraq? That an Iraq War veteran takes his or her own life nearly every day?

The people I spent this weekend with in Washington, DC know these facts, up close and personal.

We are the members of Military Families Speak Out (Military Families Speak Out*:*Index). We keep “speaking out,” but it seems like no one is listening anymore. Our soldiers languishing in Iraq are forgotten amidst news of bailouts, economic stimulus packages, and talks of escalation in Afghanistan.

We came from across the US – from California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, Wisconsin, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and other places I can’t recall.

We held a briefing downtown for the media and Congress. Practically no one came.

We walked in solemn procession from Arlington Cemetery to the White House, carrying flowers for all the Iraqi dead, US military casualties, and surviving veterans. No one came.

It wasn’t a protest or demonstration. It was a gathering. It felt more like a small church meeting than a political event. People told stories about their loved ones who served or are still serving in Iraq.

One man told of having to cut his son down from the rafters in their home where he hung himself to death, another victim of untreated PTSD. The night before his death, his son asked this man to hold him in his arms. The father rocked him in his lap. The next morning, he held his dead body on his lap. The government does not recognize them as a Gold Star family because their son did not die in the war.

Then there was the young veteran who told of having to photograph dead bodies every day as part of his job in military intelligence. He described what it felt like when he unearthed his first mass grave. Images that will remain seared in his consciousness for the rest of his life.

We listened to another young veteran who unsuccessfully tried to end his own life after he came home from the war. The army treated this as a criminal act, discharging him without honor from the service. After three tours in Iraq, he has no veterans benefits – no VA healthcare, no GI education, no disability. He was a highly decorated soldier, who advanced swiftly through the ranks. Now, he carries a service record that will prejudice him with prospective employers for the rest of his life.

The stories go on. More than I can bear. The sad reality remains. When the US goes to war these days, only the people in the military, and their families, pay the price. For everyone else, life goes on. We don’t even pay for our wars anymore. We just put them on the credit card for future generations.

The MFSO symbol is a yellow ribbon on a black peace sign. Do you remember when yellow ribbon decals and magnets sprouted everywhere throughout the land? If people have grown tired of this war, then let’s end it. No one would welcome that more than the military families who bear the lasting cost.

Meanwhile, if you want to show genuine support for the servicemen and women who we sent to fight this war (and others before it), perhaps the single most important thing you can do is to realize that PTSD is real, and to help our government, the media, and our neighbors understand that it is real.

Current estimates are that nearly 20% of Iraq War veterans are returning to us with PTSD. This is just as much a combat injury as if they came back missing a limb or wounded from a bullet or mortar. A veteran who commits suicide died from the war as much as one that lost their life from a roadside IED.

For those of us who are interested in ending war – this one in particular, and all war in general – there is no more powerful “argument” than to face the full cost of war. Besides the economy-crushing financial costs of war, the human cost to soldiers and civilian victims is nearly incalculable.

In fact these costs are so high that if we ever really faced up to them we would never go to war again. We would invest billions in searching for alternatives to war and consider it one of the best investments we ever made. Far better than the trillions we are now spending to prop up a handful of corporations.

[itsmeeeeeee]

nobody thinks about iraq much anymore...
it's SOOOOOOOO time to pull the plug!
i've still got family over there.

i just hate what this is doing to the families.
ahhhhh, don't get me started...

i'm trying to be in a good mood today!

[THX1138]

You know, I never really thought of this whole fiasco as "war" anyway.

We were watching TV the day this broke out and a friend asked what I thought because I was in the AF and I said big mistake.

Even if there were WMDs there would have been better ways to handle it, but I think most of us know junior went in there because of a personal agenda.

Going and kicking the shit out of another country is not really a war, there is no standing army they are fighting, it of course, since "mission accomplished" deteriorated into a long, protracted, complex police action.

I hope our new President can get us out of this damn mess and will also take measures to give our troops and returning veterans and the families a fair deal.

I don't know how things like Walter Reed and troops being electrocuted in Iraq because of shoddy work happens, I remember things being pretty well maintained, I mean they certainly weren't crumbling away. The previous admin. has taken us on a ride in so many ways and would have continued to do so, McCain was talking about 100 years.

That was appalling the way they discharged that troop^, suicide is a psychological, a medical problem, trust them to take the easy way out, charge him with a crime and kick him out the door.

Hopefully President Obama can bring the troops home, and he seems like the kind of guy who would see the injustices done to our vets and families and do something about it, I bet he will.

Thx

[leftparadise]

I can't believe soliders who try to commit suicide get a dishonorable discharge. the message is "we fucked up your brain and now you're going to pay for it"

[HarperLee]

I don't know how things like Walter Reed and troops being electrocuted in Iraq because of shoddy work happens, I remember things being pretty well maintained, I mean they certainly weren't crumbling away. The previous admin. has taken us on a ride in so many ways and would have continued to do so, McCain was talking about 100 years.
Thx

I will put in a good word for V.A. hospitals since my late father insisted on getting his medical treatment at a V. A. Hospital even though the family had good insurance.

The V.A. hospitals look so bad because there was no intelligent planning of this illegal, unnecessary invasion. The V.A. hospitals were understaffed and underfunded to begin with, and Cheney
and Rove and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz really didn't give a flying fuck that gravely injured troops would still be returning after 5+ years.

And then I have to put in a word for all the unpatriotic Americans who plaster their SUVs with Save Our Troops bumper stickers --
these poor saps don't know Iraq from Iowa, and if they hear on FOX News that the war is going well and we are defeating the "terr-er-ists", they don't care if our troops come back to substandard
(if any) treatment, months long waits for medical appointments, wheelchairs that are falling apart, etc.

[HarperLee]

I can't believe soliders who try to commit suicide get a dishonorable discharge. the message is "we fucked up your brain and now you're going to pay for it"

Army official: Suicides in January 'terrifying'
Two dozen soldiers believed to have killed themselves in January, official says

The number of likely suicides more than those killed in combat last month

Army psychologist says long, cold months of winter might have contributed to spike

Army takes rare step of releasing figures for month rather than waiting till end of year

From Barbara Starr and Mike Mount
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One week after the U.S. Army announced record suicide rates among its soldiers last year, the service is worried about a spike in possible suicides in the new year.

If reports of suicides are confirmed, more soldiers will have taken their lives in January than died in combat.

The Army said 24 soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in January alone -- six times as many as killed themselves in January 2008, according to statistics released Thursday.

The Army said it already has confirmed seven suicides, with 17 additional cases pending that it believes investigators will confirm as suicides for January.

If those prove true, more soldiers will have killed themselves than died in combat last month. According to Pentagon statistics, there were 16 U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq in January.

"This is terrifying," an Army official said. "We do not know what is going on."

"There is more hopelessness and helplessness because everything is so dreary and cold," she said.

Those who are seeking mental-health care often have their treatment disrupted by deployments. Deployed soldiers also have to deal with the stress of separations from families.

"When people are apart you have infidelity, financial problems, substance abuse and child behavioral problems," Platoni said. "The more deployments, the more it is exacerbated."

Platoni also said that while the military has made a lot of headway in training leaders on how to deal with soldiers who may be suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, "there is still a huge problem with leadership who shame them when they seek treatment."

The anti-depressants prescribed to soldiers can have side effects that include suicidal thoughts. Those side effects reportedly are more common in people 18 to 24.

Concern about last month's suicide rate was so high, Congress and the Army leadership were briefed. In addition, the Army took the rare step of releasing data for the month rather than waiting to issue it as part of annual statistics at the end of the year.

In January 2008, the Army recorded two confirmed cases of suicides and two other cases it was investigating.

Last week, in releasing the report that showed a record number of suicides in 2008, the Army said it soon will conduct servicewide training to help identify soldiers at risk of suicide.

The program, which will run February 15 through March 15, will include training to recognize behaviors that may lead to suicide and instruction on how to intervene. The Army will follow the training with another teaching program, from March 15 to June 15, focused on suicide prevention at all unit levels.

The 2008 numbers were the highest annual level of suicides among soldiers since the Pentagon began tracking the rate 28 years ago. The Army said 128 soldiers were confirmed to have committed suicide in 2008, and an additional 15 were suspected of having killed themselves. The statistics cover active-duty soldiers and activated National Guard and reserves.

The Army's confirmed rate of suicides in 2008 was 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers. The nation's suicide rate was 19.5 per 100,000 people in 2005, the most recent figure available, Army officials said last month.

Suicides for Marines were also up in 2008. There were 41 in 2008, up from 33 in 2007 and 25 in 2006, according to a Marines report.

In addition to the new training, the service has a program called Battlemind, intended to prepare soldiers and their families to cope with the stresses of war before, during and after deployment. It also is intended to help detect mental-health issues before and after deployments.

The Army and the National Institute of Mental Health signed an agreement in October to conduct research to identify factors affecting the mental and behavioral health of soldiers and to share strategies to lower the suicide rate. The five-year study will examine active-duty, National Guard and reserve soldiers and their families.

Army official: Suicides in January 'terrifying' - CNN.com

I can't wait for Real Time to start again. Bill Maher will be brutal about this insipid analysis by a military psychologist:

Col. Kathy Platoni, chief clinical psychologist for the Army Reserve and National Guard, said that the long, cold months of winter could be a major contributor to the January spike.