'Soldier Suicide' Epidemic Continues in Iraq -- This One Was Still a Teen

The "soldier suicide" epidemic in Iraq, which I have chronicled here for months, 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.

On his MySpace page, Kanakaole had dubbed himself "hawaiiansoljah" and adopted this quote, "id rather die on my feet then live life on my knees."

Kanakaole, according to the Honolulu Advertiser, last signed on to his MySpace page on May 31, listing his mood as "mischievous."

He had a hard life, bouncing from foster home to foster home throughout his childhood, but was well liked in high school and became a fine athlete, before joining the military last year.

His family questionsthe idea of suicide. As I reported here two days ago another family, this one in Texas, was told last year that their daughter was killed by friendly fire, and it turned out to be murder. But incidents of murder and friendly fire have been relatively rare in Iraq, while the suicides toll is now in the hundreds.

And counting.

Greg Mitchell's new book includes several chapters on soldier/vet suicides. It is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. He is editor of Editor & Publisher.

Comments

[TheBlackCat]

Greg,
This army wife thanks you from the bottom of her heart for this article and your continuing efforts to try and raise awareness of this issue. Keep up the good work! A lot of people in this country SAY they support the troops, yet do absolutely nothing to actually try and help them. You are different, you actually care about military families and are actively trying to do something about the problems we face. Military families are truly fighting this war alone.
The Bush administration cutting taxes for the rich during a time of war, while slashing veteran benefits programs, is emblematic of everything that is wrong with America today. How anyone can defend this is beyond me.

[usmc917]

Mental health care for our veterans is substantially flawed along with the rest of the veteran health care. Check out this article from small town GA: http://www.thebrunswicknews.com/open_access/news/291867869394035.php

However, there are veterans like Bill Gillespie in GA-1 fighting for vet issues by running for Congress.

[Jacksonian]

It's a sad commentary on our culture that the most promising future for our foster children is a stint in Bush's war. Why are our troops on the ground disproportionately poor and minority? Why aren't the President's daughters fighting his war? How about the sons and daughters of the sheep in Congress who followed the President into this debacle? If the surge is "working," there should be no risk in sending them to Iraq.

[TheBlackCat]

Very true. Foster kids tend to have poor grades from changing schools so often and from not having parents to help them along, so college is not an option for many of them. The state supports them (and does a crap job at it) until they're 18, but then they are cut loose with little idea of how to make it in society, and there are very few programs to help them learn how to make it in the real world.
My parents took in a foster child when she was 16, and with their love and support- both emotionally and financially- she found her way and is about to graduate from college. Most of her friends she met in foster care, however, are either dead, in jail, or in the military.
NeoCON politicians love this ( I will not lump all repubs in this group). If they cut money for social programs, it ensures poor kids and orphans will have almost no chance to get ahead and will join the military for lack of other options. Punishing children for the mistakes of their parents keeps them mired in poverty and more likely to volunteer for military service. If not for these bottom of the barrel youngsters, the recruitment levels would be even worse for the military and an unpopular draft would be inevitable.

[Steve Real]

Hey Greg what is the basic problem with your article?

I don't have the stats in front of me
(and neither do you apparently).
But the last stats I read was that the US Army still has
a lower suicide rate then Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland
combined.

Why is that Greg?
Even with the war going on...
I want to know why?

Why Greg does the US Army have a lower suicide rate
then these Nordic countries?
maybe...
you'll research your statictics next time friend
before you put pen to paper.

[WallaceLine]

I am a Republican veteran with a son serving in Afghanistan, and I hope that most of the readers of this page know that Steve and Tubby are not representative of conservatives, they are representative of the worst kind of American. I have nothing but contempt for the above post.

When I returned from Vietnam, the above mindset- sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the plights of fellow Americans, was rampant. It lead to huge numbers of mentally ill or homeless vets. Even the veterans of WWII turned their backs on the Vietnam vets.

I work for the Wounded Warriors program, trying to give assistance to the most vulnerable of our returning soldiers, because Tricare is failing to do so. There is a sign hanging in our office which reads:

NEVER AGAIN WILL ONE GENERATION OF SOLDIERS ABANDON ANOTHER

We are determined to not repeat the mistakes of our fathers. Yet Steve here wants to make the exact same mistake, claiming that somehow caring about the wellbeing of soldiers is unpatriotic and anti military, a stance which defies logic.

Please give generously: http://www.woundedwarriors.org.

[TheBlackCat]

P.S. My LT husband just read your post and had a lot more nasty things to say to you, but I don't think HuffPo censors would let me type a word of it! I think they'll let this thing go

"I give my heart and soul and if necessary my life to the citizens of America. Yet they don't give a damn about me or my kids (as he calls his troops)."

And you think that you're the one who's pro military! Laughable!!! You obviously are only pro war, and don't give a damn about the soldiers themselves. There is a HUGE difference.

[TheBlackCat]

Steve,
Just because someone else has it worse does not negate the fact that it is a problem here.

If you were arrested for mugging, you couldn't argue with the judge that hey, the guy in the cell next to you murdered someone, so by comparison you aren't as bad and should be let go.

The fact that suicide is high in far north countries with little sunlight does not mean rates of depression and suicide here do not matter. My husband is a LT in the 982nd airborn, and he was exremely concerned about the fact that 3/4 of his soldiers in Baghdad were on anti depressants. One committed suicide and two were sent home early and institutionalized for suicidal depression. He is constantly complaining that there is not enough attention being paid to this issue. He feels it is because this war has been so poorly run and that there is no clear reasoning or goals for what they are supposed to be accomplishing. He also says a big problem is that typically a soldier goes to war and stays there until his mission is complete, sometime for years. But in Iraq you have this cycle where soldiers go for a year, are sent back home, then have to go back, then home, and back again. This constant change in environment puts more stress on the soldiers.

I find it disturbing that you and Tubby think that caring about our soldiers is undermining the military.

[Tubby]

Liberals like to seize upon any problem thaat helps undermine the US military and weaken the morale of the American people. We saw it in during Vietnam, and we're seeing it today.

[nomoron]

Apparently you're a conservative, so let's be realistic about what's really going on in Bush's War. Never in the history of this country have we engaged in prolonged fighting without the benefit of a draft. The notion of requiring our military personnel to serve two, three or more tours in a combat zone (with no clear end in sight) is one of the greatest abuses a commander-in-chief can inflict on his troops. The only way this administration has managed to keep this farce from blowing up in their face at home has been a steadfast refusal to implement a draft. They know to compel American men and women to fight in an unjust war would be the quickest way to end an agenda he misleadingly managed to sell the public. The backlash among his base would be fierce and the end to hostilities in Iraq would come very quickly.
This isn't about undermining our military or attempting to weaken it's morale. It's about recognizing the truth and taking responsibility for providing adequate care to a group of people who've time and again witnessed horrors most of us can only imagine.