Flags on the graves at Chalmette National Cemetery in New Orleans.
From the Hartford Courant:
By EMANUEL MARGOLIS
Dr. Ira Katz, chief of mental health services for the Department of Veterans Affairs, sent an e-mail to a VA colleague this past February that read:
"Shh! Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 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 somebody stumbles on it?"
Unfortunately for the government, somebody did "stumble" on it. Dr. Katz lied about the numbers before the House of Representatives Veterans' Affairs Committee, grossly understating the number of such suicide attempts. He testified that the number for all of 2007 was 790. He also neglected the Army's own "Suicide Event Report," which disclosed that 2006 saw the highest rate of military suicides in 26 years!
....
The Veterans for Common Sense lawsuit has already demonstrated that the VA intentionally misled Congress and the public about the epidemic of veterans' suicides. Here are the facts squeezed out of the government to date:
• 120 veterans commit suicide every week.
• 1,000 veterans attempt suicide while in VA care every month.
• Nearly one in five service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan (approximately 300,000) have post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms or major depression.
• 19 percent of post-Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been diagnosed with possible traumatic brain injury, according to a Rand Corp. Study in April.
....
These are the real costs of President Bush's misbegotten and mismanaged wars. These are the costs that the administration seeks to hide while it attempts to make the test of patriotism the wearing of flag pins in our lapels!
It's what is underneath those flag pins that really matters. It is called compassion. It is real patriotism as opposed to the fraud of "Mission Accomplished" and promises of victory.
It's just not possible to reach the end of outrage with the Bush maladministration and its minions. You think that you have, and then word of some new outrage comes forth and leaves you gasping for breath. Look at the numbers! Surely casualties of the Iraq War along with those killed and maimed in battle.
And during the "debate" between Clinton and Obama, the lady asked Obama where was his flag pin, and ABC gave her air time.
Photo from the Times-Picayune.
H/T to Juan Cole and Paul, the BB.
The suicidal soldiers should have their flag pins ceremonally removed.
ReplyDeleteSort of like the shaming ceremony that started the old TV show, "Branded."
I am, of course, not serious. I'm sickened. I don't know how to respond anymore. I just hope there will be a flooding of the stables that will wash all of this...well, you know...away.
For a while, anyway. It's still stables; they still fill up with it.
I have another idea for the ceremonial removal, not of flag pins, for this malaministration's leaders; however, they have more than amply demonstrated they have none, from Dubya & Darth to our own Senator from Likud: Holy Joe.
ReplyDeleteJust finished Sharyn McCrumb's book, Ghost Riders, on the Civil War in Appalachia. All so sad.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mimi, for carrying this topic forward. Awareness may lead to change (not that I expect Bush and the Bushies to change but the people may force changes at long last).
ReplyDeleteHeartbreaking, and unfortunately not surprising in the least.
ReplyDeleteOMG, those statistics are depressing.
ReplyDeleteMy brother worked as a civilian truck driver over there for about 8 months. He didn't tell me much, but the little he told me was enough to haunt me for weeks. I cannot even imagine what those soldiers go through.
It's hard for me to compare, too, Ruth, even though my Vietnam PTSD is sufficient to obstruct regular employment. I see some people going back for another tour, and the ways this maladministration has moved the goalposts time and again, and I'm surprised there have not been reported mutinies. Perhaps, as near the end of our war(oh, that we could say so of this one!), there are increasingly "isolated" incidents of hard charging greenhorns finding their ways to an accident.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how they have managed so far, or, I do, but I'm still surprised.
Yes, this makes me cry.
ReplyDeletejohnieb, it must be so difficult for you to witness the administration's disregard for the wellbeing of our troops. Thank you for what you personally have sacrificed for our country. I'm sorry to read of your PTSD.
ReplyDeleteGrandmère Mimi, this post stirred up the feelings I had when my brother was in Iraq and caused me to change my post for tomorrow. I'm posting a poem I wrote back then, a very disturbing poem about both the Iraq War and 9/11. I don't know if I would have ever thought of publishing it on the blog if I hadn't read this post today. Thank you for unknowingly prompting me to to be more political on my blog than usual.
Fr Jake made this sugggestion in his Memorial Day post:
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, many of us often find good reasons to be quite critical of our government, especially in regards to the current sad chapter unfolding in Iraq. On this day, I ask that we set those matters aside.
I read his post after I had posted mine, but with this suicide story, I don't think I could have resisted commentary.
Ruth, I'll look for your poem.
Johnieb, and anyone else who reads this and who has served, thank you for your service to our country.
Oh my- it makes my heart hurt so much.
ReplyDeleteHow long Lord, how long?
I read a great post - I don't have the link handy, but I linked to it on my post today, it is at the bottom.
God have mercy on us all.
I might also add it doesn't help that the VA keeps shifting their criteria for what constitutes the diagnosis for PTSD, and has basically eliminated much of what historically considered "service connected" illness/injury/etc. They are now requiring the reporting of anything possibly "service connected" to be reported within two years.
ReplyDeleteWhat a crock. Things like Agent Orange induced prostate cancer took at least a decade to show up in Vietnam era vets and sometimes two decades or more. They tend to get it at an earlier age than usual, but it still takes some time. Under the present rules, those folks would be SOL for being treated at the VA.
When my cousin returned from Iraq and went back to his National Guard unit from active duty, I told him on his exit physical to name every single thing that was halfway wrong with him.
And every one of the individuals in these stories about the number has a face and a family.
ReplyDeleteEvery service/wo/man lives, and sometimes dies, this agony, and then there is the person's mother, child, spouse, lover, circle of friends, workplace, congregation, community...
Keep lamenting, Mimi. Rmj, I don't know how to respond either -- except that lament is not just a grief response, it is itself protest, resistance, and our ethical duty. Thank you, Mimi, for raising your voice in lament. This is what the prophets did, you know. They did not just scold and warn, they also wept aloud.
Let not our tears be silent.
I meant "about the numbers," in the plural.
ReplyDeleteThe costs are ongoing as well into the next few decades for the veterans themselves and, as children will be enormously affected by their emotionally disturbed, irritible, depressed, agressive and explosive parents, the costs will roll out even for generations to come.
ReplyDeleteIt's true of most wars of course but this will be a very costly war.
Kirk,
ReplyDeleteThose of us who have service-connected injuries recognized by VA are all too familiar with their shell games. In this abomination, the maladministration has raised it to SOP, from "stop-gap" orders, extended tours, abbreviated intervals between tours, and, as you point out, denying this causes anyone any problems, except perhaps getting a little rusty on yer short-irons.
It took me almost two years of pushing against rejections before I got my upgrade, after nearly twenty years of treatment within the system. The figures of 20-30% PTSD returnees are officially recognized data; how does this help you make a accurate estimate of reality?
I'd say anybody that doesn't come back with PTSD is f**kin crazy.
Yesterday, I clicked around the internet to read on the subject of diagnosis and treatment of PTSD, one click leading to another, and one of the treatments seems to be to medicate the troops and send them back to war. It's not an official, named policy, of course, but it's the de facto treatment of choice for some of them.
ReplyDeleteI remember Jane's post well. More than a few take their own lives when they are told that they will be redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
This is nothing less than abuse of the troops under their care by the military leadership. Why aren't there more protests and resignations, if necessary, among the leaders?
I had no idea. This is heartbreaking.
ReplyDelete