Post-War Veteran Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths: U.S.

Bloomberg:

The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.

Community mental health centers, hobbled by financial limits, haven't provided enough scientifically sound care, especially in rural areas, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He briefed reporters today at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Washington.

Insel echoed a Rand Corporation study published last month that found about 20 percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post- traumatic stress disorder or depression, and only half of them receive treatment. About 1.6 million U.S. troops have fought in the two wars since October 2001, the report said. About 4,560 soldiers had died in the conflicts as of today, the Defense Department reported on its Web site.

Read the whole story: Bloomberg

Comments

[bobo209]

General Petraeus: Zionism’s Military Poodle
From Surge to Purge to Dirge


President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders promised to end their support for the special groups but the nefarious activities of the Quds Force have continued.”

Senator Joseph Lieberman: “Is it fair to say that the Iranian-backed special groups are responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians?” General Petraeus: “It certainly is…That is correct.”
General Petraeus testimony to the US Senate, April 8-9, 2008.

The Israeli flag is proudly displayed above the Sacred Ark alongside the American flag…”( in an orthodox synagogue in wealthy Georgetown, Washington DC. The entrance fee to the synagogue is $1000 for a single holiday.) “On each Sabbath the prayers include the benediction for the Israeli Jewish soldiers and the prayer for the welfare of the Israeli government and its officials. Many Jewish American Administration pray there. They not only don’t try to conceal their religious affiliation, but go to great lengths to demonstrate their Judaism since it may help their careers greatly. The enormous Jewish influence in Washington is not limited to the government. In the Washingtonian, medias a very significant part of the most important personages and of the presenters of the most popular programs on the TV are warm Jews…and let us not forget,in this context, the Jewish predominance in the Washingtonian academic institutions.”

Avinoam Bar-Yosef (the Israeli daily newspaper) Ma’riv September 2, 1994

[mnnice]

little israel - washington.Time for some balls. impeach then get a real commision to investigate 9/11.Heads will roll.

[Nyland8]

The only ones trashing our troops are the party-befo­re-country­, neo-conned minions of the reich-wing. Our troops should be back on our shores and reunited with their families ASAP. Stupid numbers conflating depression rates with suicide rates reveal your posts to be meaningless spin.

“The Hartford Courant, citing records obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act and more than 100 interviews of families and military personnel, reported numerous cases in which the military failed to follow its own regulations in screening, treating and evacuating mentally unfit troops from Iraq. … Twenty-two U.S. troops committed suicide in Iraq last year, accounting for nearly one in five of all non-combat deaths and was the highest suicide rate since the war started, the newspaper said.

Some service members who committed suicide in 2004 and 2005 were kept on duty despite clear signs of mental distress, sometimes after being prescribed antidepressants with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring. Those findings conflict with regulations adopted last year by the Army that caution against the use of antidepressants for “extended deployments”.

“I can’t imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on (antidepressants), when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal,” said Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection. “You’re creating chemically activated time bombs.”

8

[Jitsuryoku]

Yesterday, when I pointed out (via e-mail) to a former senior manager (white/mal­e/republic­an) that Iraq had nothing to do with September 11 and our troops are being abused, I was told to wake up and smell the roses. That Al Quaeda was a horrible regime responsible for beheadings, child suicide bombers and inhuman abuses against women.

He then went on to tell me that I should kiss the ground that I walk on; that I was an ungrateful citizen and shame on me for not appreciating having the right to live in a country where I can criticize the government without repercussion.

He ended the conversation by saying that people like me would have a totally different point of view if we had lost loved ones in the 911 tragedy.

And, as for the Presidential election, he was going to write in his vote for Harry Truman!! (Did I forget to mention that he is decades older than me?)

I wanted to reply back to him, "But, Iraq had nothing to do with September 11." But, I didn't because even waste my breath.

I'm so frustrated, it's literally making me ill.

[bluesnot]

Don't ever let ANYONE tell you that you are less of a citizen for speaking out. EVER!

Instead of trying to convince him, you should have suggested that he do more for his country like get educated instead of listening to the trash that right wing radio and TV feed him.

[mnnice]

Wake up, bush did 9/11as a precurser to start this illegal war. (google patriots question 9/11) There are people in washington who need to be in jail.

[utd]

1. I tried pinning down one of our state legislators at a county democratic convention a couple weeks ago about this. He was supposedly "the guy who is doing stuff" according to our veterans caucus. I was the only non Vietnam/ Korea vet in the room. I was the only person in the room who even knew anyone still on active duty. I know those guys went through their own kinds of hell, and some still do. Trying to explain to them or our state Senator seemed like I was talking to a brick wall though. They are still fighting about getting Vietnam vets off the streets. They don't get that war has changed a bit, it's faster and longer at the same time, guys don't get to go home after a tour or two any more, the weapons have gotten more primitive from our enemies, and more advanced from our friends. Our statey tried running me in linguistical circles, fucking cock sucker wouldn't give me a strait answer to save his life. I told him that if we don't address my friends who are coming home quickly and the first time they ask for sure with better social services and get them hooked on things like school vs drugs and drinking right away we are just going to be dealing with this problem for the next 30 years. "Well it's the republicans" he tells me. No shit, you don't say.

[utd]

2. I wonder if he has ever had to rush over to a military buddies house to keep him from killing his wife because his head was so screwed up he couldn't tell who she was? I'm guessing no. I told him a little help in the education department would help worlds too. He told me about the GI Bill, mumbled something about returning soldiers not being able to concentrate enough for school and I almost knocked him the fuck out at that point. Oh and if we die in combat in our state they let our kids and spouse go to college for free. I mentioned what a bargain that is and all we have to do is sacrifice our life for our country, but our mind, body, and soul is not worth as much apparently.

This story won't get the attention it deserves.

[utd]

3. I am voting for and support Obama. I know this is not a partisan issue but I think my reasoning for this should be heard since I at least know other vets will read this. I met McCain a couple times while still in the service. I thought he was the fucking bees knees, the guy could do no wrong. Something happened to him in the past 8 years though, he has become the guy willing to blindly sacrifice the life of a soldier instead of holding it in the highest regard. I read Obama's book when he decided to run, and the guy makes a lot of fucking sense. He may not say the right thing all the time, but I believe in my heart of hearts he will always do the right thing. Most importantly my team still in Iraq and Afghanistan think he is the right answer too.

[HatingTheGame]

Through early morning fog I see

visions of the things to be

the pains that are withheld for me

I realize and I can see...

[REFRAIN]:

that suicide is painless

It brings on many changes

and I can take or leave it if I please.

I try to find a way to make

all our little joys relate

without that ever-present hate

but now I know that it's too late, and...

[REFRAIN]

The game of life is hard to play

I'm gonna lose it anyway

The losing card I'll someday lay

so this is all I have to say.

[REFRAIN]

The only way to win is cheat

And lay it down before I'm beat

and to another give my seat

for that's the only painless feat.

[REFRAIN]

The sword of time will pierce our skins

It doesn't hurt when it begins

But as it works its way on in

The pain grows stronger...watch it grin, but...

[REFRAIN]

A brave man once requested me

to answer questions that are key

is it to be or not to be

and I replied 'oh why ask me?'

[REFRAIN]

'Cause suicide is painless

it brings on many changes

and I can take or leave it if I please.

...and you can do the same thing if you please.

[HatingTheGame]

I'm just dreading for the other shoe to drop.

Before the war, saw a picture on the front page our newspaper. Group of soldiers (all white), heads shaved, smiling, fists in the air, ready to go kick some Iraqi ass. I asked my friend, "Which one of these boys are the next Tim McVay?"

Now, five years later, after sending 1000s of boys, emptied prisons filling military quota, in 110 degree desert heat, given bad equipment, taught how to kill (raping and pillaging they learned on their own), we have a nightmare on our hands.

These boys, low education, future prospects not so bright, girl friends who've left them, parents overwhelmed, friends who have moved on, are walking time bombs waiting to explode. Many implode, taking their own lives, some explode taking others with them, few are ready to go nuclear. Angry at a government that lied to them, sending them to a far away land crusading for a corrupt administration. Killing innocents.

Do we really want our troops to come home? Where will be put 200,000 returning soldiers, a significant portion of them ill? Our VA can't handle them. Our small towns can't help them. Our nation will forget them. Our government doesn't care.

Saying I told you so isn't enough. Gives no pleasure. I hope that all of you that supported this jingoistic madness are satisfied with the horror that you've unleashed on your children.

Your chickens are coming home to roost America. I hope you're ready.

[FogBelter]

The American People have failed their Military Personnel ... The American People have as much responsibility to protect their soldiers from irresponsible use as the soldiers have the responsibility to protect the American People from those who would threaten and do them harm.

The American People couldn't be bothered to control their sociopathic, elected leaders and the men and women of the Military and their families at home bear the brunt of that betrayal.

[Raymondf]

I will say this then I'm going to bed. I agree we are fighting an unjust war now, but when it started I feel the President was misled by the CIA, FBI, NSA,and others and the only mistake he made was going in too fast before he was sure the intelligence was correct. I still think that Sadam moved his WMD to Syria to be buried. I think another mistake was listening to Rumsfeld, I always never trusted him, or Colin Powell. Those two are who we should be critising not Bush. the next mistake was after the elections, We should have had a talk with the elected president of Iraq, and told him you have 6 months and we are leaving. Then Bin Laden and his partners came in to Iraq and funded civil unrest, so then we had to stay a little longer. When it died down after the surge we should tell them we a leaving, we will give you aid with rebuilding your cities. Then we should have taken 80,000 soldiers, and along with the Afghan Army fought the real ememy on the border off Pakistan, useing mostly guided bombs at every mountain on that border. One more thing our real enemy in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia their oil money is funding all millitant groups in the area. Al-Quida, Taliban, Hesballah.

[HellenaHandbasket]

I'm glad you can go to sleep still denying the fact that the only people that were misled in this terrible war were the American People. President Bush knew we were going to invade before his inauguration and made sure that all of our security agencies molded the truth around his, and the neoconsevative agenda.

I, for one, won't be able to rest until every, single one of our servicepeople come home where we can care for them and help them heal from the terrible wounds that WE had inflicted upon them.

[ErnestineBass]

You're sleepwalking, Raymond, dear.

[cdnnewsjunky]

If what your saying is that at one point you supported the illegal invasion but now you don't, then good for you. It's always a good sign, when people question their beliefs.

I disagree with your opinion that Bush was lied to, but believe that he was involved in the lies, but that's for another debate, don't want to rock your new boat too badly. Keep reading and keep protesting! As the old saying goes, the truth will set you free!

[tbone99]

Bush is the ultimate Decider as he himself has declared.It was HIS responsibility to make decisions based upon the facts and ultimately he is accountable.

"going in too fast before he was sure the intelligence was correct." is a gargantuan mistake!The fact that his friends have profited immensely seems to indicate it was not an error, but a calculated move. I'd love to see his stock portfolio three years out.

[peacekitten]

this is a response to pierre.

you seem like a reasonable person. as far as being taken in by lies, all you have to do is look around these threads. there are posters here who lie continually, and yet manage to inveigle themselves successfully to others without a shred of truth ever crossing their lips. they don't want to hear the truth because it's hard, and would require some decency to 'fess up to being liars.

a lot like this administration, wouldn't you say?

[PierreLeClerke]

It is an extraordinary challenge to wight the ship, but we must not give up, we cannot give up.

There are those who's pride prevents them from facing the facts of their participation in so great a crime. whether they were mislead because they were too busy to do the work it takes to get to the bottom of the BULL, or as many did, they simple deceived themselves because it was easy or they gained some feathers for their own nest in the active participation in the crime. .No matter the reason, all must face the judgment that they cannot escape. Their own souls will haunt them forever until they repent and turn from their evil ways. Some will never come clean, and will hold fast to their self deception to the grave. I for one will not rest until the truth is known to all, and once the pendulum has swung fully back to the center of balance, those that have committed these crimes of the century will be hunted down in every corner of the earth not unlike the criminals of the last great holocaust. Give them no rest, ever!

[Meah]

Somebody has to help our kids! It is so terribly tragic! They need to get out of there now!
Doesn't anyone give a damn about them? All blown up and maimed; either physically or mentally!
AND FOR WHAT???

They have died for oil??

This is a nightmare that has got to stop!!!

But Hillary wants to stay there and even nuke Iran!

Madness!!!

[PierreLeClerke]

You are that somebody, where were you on April 19th somebody?

[Americanium]

This is a serious threat to the nation's security.

These highly trained killing machines will be coming home to a country that does not care about them. A country with no jobs and little health care.

God help us if these guys decide that crime pays.

[ConservativesRCowards]

Das Leben der Anderen

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/

...East Germany tore down their wall, our government took those same stones and put them up here.

Following modified text from Wikipedia:

In the East Germany (GDR) of 1984, Stasi Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler, a keenly idealistic supporter of the socialist regime, is shown interrogating a prisoner who is suspected to know who helped another person defect to the West. He plays a recording of the interrogation while lecturing a class on Stasi methods. One of the students in the class expresses his view, saying that the sleep depriving interrogation procedure is "inhumane".

...The student's name is noted.

Wiesler is assigned to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman, who, Wiesler is told, is suspected of Western sympathies. Stasi agents secretly enter Dreyman's apartment in order to install small microphones in the light switches and electric sockets.

Dreyman, a supporter of the regime, dislikes the way dissidents are treated. He publicly stands up for his friends if he feels that they have been unfairly treated.

Dreyman arranges with West Germany's weekly magazine Der Spiegel to anonymously publish an article on suicide rates in the GDR. While the GDR publishes detailed statistics on many things, it has not published any information on suicide rates since the 1970s, presumably because they are embarrassingly high. Because all typewriters are registered, Dreyman uses a typewriter smuggled from the west with a red ribbon to write the article, which he hides under the floor in his apartment.

[peacekitten]

art imitates life in the most frighteningly real ways sometimes.......

[HippieChick]

"The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care"

I had been wondering if suicides were included in the death toll in Bush's war...obviously not. There hasn't been much written about the large number of troops that have found life so unbearable they can't go on, one of those casualties being the man in gear and a cigarette in the photo that circulated (and still does on occasion) to give that war poster boy "Marlboro Man" image to those who are trapped in this unending nightmare. I never believed the war machine would give up on Vietnam, but the machine was finally forced to put an end to the carnage. Like then, I am finding it difficult to believe the war profiteers will put an end to the Iraq carnage, but I hope someday soon they will once again be forced to stop the Iraq madness. When that happens, and when the final death toll is ultimately revealed, it will become just another obscure number, like those lives lost to the Vietnam travestity. That there are no healthcare resources to assist those whose lives have been damaged beyond repair makes Bush's neocon imperial war even more unforgiveable.

[PierreLeClerke]

The leadership and their profiteer puppeteers are and have always been cowards.

We were able to stop the war in Vietnam because real numbers of citizens marched.
We physically got up off our asses and actually went to the seat of the problem and looked down on them from our mighty numbers and they shrunk away in fear of the rebellion by their true masters, We The People.
No change will take place without action, it is all they have ever known or understood. It is the law of the bully and the gang. They will take until they are stopped. IS THAT CLEAR!

[HippieChick]

"We were able to stop the war in Vietnam because real numbers of citizens marched"

True. The Vietnam draft ensured that We The People in the that era hit the streets en masse. The media during that time assisted in keeping American citizens informed about what was happening with this nation's citizen preferences. The neocons have made sure the draft is not in play in this Iraq war-for-profit experience...they have created a massive private uncontrolled army operating under the "Blackwater" label to solve their protes and exposuret problems. I would like to say, however, that thousands to date have hit the streets in protest of the Iraq invasion...several times. I am not the only one who observes media inattention to the events. The imperial media is too busy making sure the unpopularity of the neocon imperial foreign policy receives no air time.

[yathink]

This is all too indicative of the current state of affairs. Of course you won't find this on any TV station. Big surprise. Could any of the candidates address the state of our media? Nah. Too complicated for the 4-year-olds out here in the hinterlands. Or out of the Beltway for Hillary. Or too populist for McCain, certainly. Maybe somebody from Obama's campaign can notice and urge the candidate to change the subject and attack something like this. Or is there no hope whatsoever in this country we mistakenly call a a democracy?

[shrugged]

What do you think war is and you don't expect horrid consequences? Where were these voices in the run up? Good hind sight. But, that's right people forget. Then you say "Mr. President do something about Darfur". Oh, and send troops to .........