The Truth About Veteran Suicides

Eighteen American war veterans kill themselves every day. One thousand former soldiers receiving care from the Department of Veterans Affairs attempt suicide every month. More veterans are committing suicide than are dying in combat overseas.

These are statistics that most Americans don’t know, because the Bush administration has refused to tell them. Since the start of the Iraq War, the government has tried to present it as a war without casualties.

In fact, they never would have come to light were it not for a class action lawsuit brought by Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth on behalf of the 1.7 million Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The two groups allege the Department of Veterans Affairs has systematically denied mental health care and disability benefits to veterans returning from the conflict zones.

The case, officially known as Veterans for Common Sense vs. Peake, went to trial last month at a Federal Courthouse in San Francisco. The two sides are still filing briefs until May 19 and waiting for a ruling from Judge Samuel Conti, but the case is already having an impact.

“Shh!”

That’s because over the course of the two week trial, the VA was compelled to produce a series of documents that show the extent of the crisis effecting wounded soldiers.

“Shh!” begins one e-mail from Dr. Ira Katz, the head of the VA’s Mental Health Division, advising a media spokesperson not to tell CBS News that 1,000 veterans receiving care at the VA try to kill themselves every month.

“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 someone stumbles on it?” the e-mail concludes.

Leading Democrats on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee immediately called for Katz’s resignation. On May 6, the Chair of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, Bob Filner (D-CA) convened a hearing titled “The Truth About Veteran’s Suicides” and called Katz and VA Secretary James Peake to testify.

“That e-mail was in poor tone but the content was part of a dialogue about what we should do about new information,” Katz said in response to Filner’s questions. “The e-mail represents a healthy dialogue among members of VA staff about when it’s appropriate to disclose and make public information early in the process.”

Filner was nonplused and accused Katz and Peake of a “cover-up.”

“We should all be angry about what has gone on here,” Filner said. “This is a matter of life and death for the veterans that we are responsible for and I think there was criminal negligence in the way this was handled. If we do not admit, assume or know then the problem will continue and people will die. If that’s not criminal negligence, I don’t know what is.”

A Pattern

It’s also part of a pattern. The high number of veteran suicides weren’t the only government statistics the Bush Administration was forced to reveal because of the class action lawsuit.

Another set of documents presented in court showed that in the six months leading up to March 31, a total of 1,467 veterans died waiting to learn if their disability claim would be approved by the government. A third set of documents showed that veterans who appeal a VA decision to deny their disability claim have to wait an average of 1,608 days, or nearly four and a half years, for their answer.

Other casualty statistics are not directly concealed, but are also not revealed on a regular basis. For example, the Pentagon regularly reports on the numbers of American troops “wounded” in Iraq (currently at 31,948) but neglects to mention that it has two other categories “injured” (10,180) and “ill” (28,451). All three of these categories represent soldiers who are so damaged physically they have to be medically evacuated to Germany for treatment, but by splitting the numbers up the sense of casualties down the public consciousness.

Here’s another number that we don’t often hear discussed in the media: 287,790. That’s the number of returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who had filed a disability claim with the Veterans Administration as of March 25th. That figure was not announced to the public at a news conference, but obtained by Veterans for Common Sense using the Freedom of Information Act.

Why all the secrecy? Why is it so hard to get accurate casualty figures out of our government? Because the Bush Administration knows if Americans woke up to the real, human costs of this war they would fight harder to oppose it.

Some ‘Cakewalk’

Think back to 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, when leading neo-conservative thinker and Donald Rumsfeld aide Ken Adelman predicted the war would be a “cakewalk.”

Or consider this statement from Vice President Dick Cheney. Two days before the invasion, Cheney told NBC’s Tim Russert the war would “go relatively quickly…(ending in) weeks rather than months.”

Today, those comments are gone but the motivation behind them remains. This is why the VA’s head of mental health wrote “Shh!” telling a spokesperson not to respond to a reporters’ inquiry.

But all the shhing in the world cannot stop the horrible pain that’s mounting after five years of war in Iraq and nearly seven years of war in Afghanistan.

Unpleasant Facts

According to an April 2008 study by the Rand Corporation, 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans currently suffer from post traumatic stress disorder or major depression. Another 320,000 suffer from traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage. A majority are not receiving help from the Pentagon and VA system which are more concerned with concealing unpleasant facts than they are with providing care.

In its study, the RAND Corporation wrote that the federal government fails to care for war veterans at its own peril - noting post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury “can have far reaching and damaging consequences.”

“Individuals afflicted with these conditions face higher risks for other psychological problems and for attempting suicide. They have higher rates of unhealthy behaviors — such as smoking, overeating, and unsafe sex — and higher rates of physical health problems and mortality. Individuals with these conditions also tend to miss more work or report being less productive,” the report said. “These conditions can impair relationships, disrupt marriages, aggravate the difficulties of parenting, and cause problems in children that may extend the consequences of combat trauma across generations.”

“These consequences can have a high economic toll,” RAND said. “However, most attempts to measure the costs of these conditions focus only on medical costs to the government. Yet, direct costs of treatment are only a fraction of the total costs related to mental health and cognitive conditions. Far higher are the long-term individual and societal costs stemming from lost productivity, reduced quality of life, homelessness, domestic violence, the strain on families, and suicide. Delivering effective care and restoring veterans to full mental health have the potential to reduce these longer-term costs significantly.”

Bush and Congress have the power to stop this problem before it gets worse. It’s not too late to extend needed mental health care to our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans; it’s not too late to begin properly screening and treating returning servicemen and women who’ve experienced a traumatic brain injury; and it is not too late to simplify the disability claims process so that wounded veterans do not die waiting for their check. As the Rand study shows, this isn’t only in the best interest of veterans, it’s in the best interest of our country in the long run.

To start with, the Bush Administration needs to give us some honest information about the true human costs of the Iraq War.

Aaron Glantz, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is the author of two upcoming books on Iraq: The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans (UC Press) and Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations (Haymarket). He edits the website WarComesHome.org.

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43 Comments so far

willybill May 11th, 2008 3:06 pm

18 veterans a day killing themselves. To err conservatively, let’s say that’s three and one half years times 18 veterans a day equals 22,995 more deaths that this deceptive, evil administration has hidden from the public. How many more lies will we allow?? And where is the respect, honor and dignity due these veterans and their friends and relatives as their demise is swept under the carpet?

st john May 11th, 2008 3:09 pm

This story has been around for at least several days, yet there is no coverage about it in Corp(se) Media. Why? The statistics are unconscionable about attempts, “successful attempts” and those who have claims for traumatic head injuries and PTSD and are waiting for awards. Regardless of what you think or how you feel about the military and its soldiers, this is a crime against humanity that must be addressed. Write your congresspeople and newspapers with a demand for coverage and immediate action. Hearings may be underway, but I have yet to hear of any of these hearings actually reaching a conclusion and any action being taken against those found culpable. Does anyone here even have direct contact with any of the presidential candidates? I suspect not, but I just ask the question.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation

peace,
st john

StuWilde May 11th, 2008 3:36 pm

American Casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan
Dead:4,569
Wounded:31,984
Injured:10,180
Ill:28,451
Received Treatment from VA:299,585
Filed A Disability Claim:287,790

These are the true numbers the mainstream media should be reporting. I am disgusted with the Bush Administration who often uses the military as a prop, but the action of the VA suggest their is loathing towards Veterans.

since1492 May 11th, 2008 3:44 pm

The truth about veteran suicides has always been around. Getting it into corporate media is impossible because they have a vested interest in not telling the whole story. More and more troops are coming home with PTSD. Starting with Korea the number of troops with PTSD has been increasing. This is happening because all our wars are now political wars. Politicians using the military to advance their political agenda. In these dirty wars the troops are witnessing horrors that they haven’t been prepared for. You can deal with your buddy getting killed, but those children and women killed won’t leave your mind. Political wars always involve civilians, including children. Just look at Iraq. American troops can win justified wars, as evidenced by WW2. But only the politician can win a political war.
The treatment of the veteran by the VA system and society at large is horrible, but understandable. The VA just doesn’t care and most Americans don’t even know what the vets have been through. Hard to fit back into a society that doesn’t understand what you have been doing in their name.
Hoa binh

pbk May 11th, 2008 4:40 pm

Is anyone really all that surprised? To hear all these statistics at one time is naturally horrifying, but there have been enough small reports, just scatching the surface to allow someone interested to start connecting dots quite some time ago. I suspect we would have to have as our military a population of total sociopaths if we expected to avoid the trauma associated with the bloodbath that has taken at least close to a million Iraqi and Afghani civilian lives. Civilians, women and children, and the elderly. Unarmed non-combatants. What sane person with any kind of basic human morality would not suffer psychologically from witnessing the nightmarish scenes that inevitably follow bombing raids in heavily populated areas, where body parts and the dead and dying are mostly civilians? This is indeed criminal, and the crime lies directly at the feet of the maniacs who manipulated the country into these “crimes against humanity”; and we as a nation, and the world in general, need to see these criminals shackled doing a perp walk in front of the same media they have so successfully turned into their private propaganda machines. Shameful indeed!

Ghawar May 11th, 2008 4:55 pm

It’s genocide. The government certainly knows the figures and the causes, yet it allows the suicides to go on. I would bet too that the government has funded studies that predicted the suicides - and it has put the findings to its use: genocide via of ptsd and suicide.

You may scoff at my accusation of genocide, but a U.S. administration that wants to commit genocide cannot copy Hitler with gas chambers and mass extermination camps, at least not yet. No, a more sophisticated form of genocide is necessary, and just as the weapons and the propaganda have grown far more sophisticated in the decades since Hitler, all of the various forms of genocide that are currently in use are also far more sophisticated. I call the new versions “genocide with plausible deniability” because their perpetrators can attribute the deaths to chance or to unpredictable circumstances and events or even to 6570 suicides per year among veterans.

The numbers are not as big as Hitler’s where thousands died in a day in the gas chambers, but remember that the veteran suicides are only one among several forms of genocide in use today that may be plausibly denied.

The way of course to deny not plausibly but irrefutably that the suicides are intentional would be to acknowledge the deaths and to take the necessary measures to see that returning veterans are given the care they need to survive. But I don’t think that will happen because, frankly, I think that once a soldier has finished his tour of duty, then the government would just as soon see him dead. Isn’t the war cheaper that way?

CJM May 11th, 2008 5:35 pm

It saves money on healthcare if they kill themselves.

peaceman May 11th, 2008 5:45 pm

The first six posters, well stated!

We can discuss this all day, but as long as military personnel are willing to participate in illegal and immoral acts of violent aggression, the suicides and PTSD will continue.

The human spirit has been seduced by highly specialized subliminal advertising to serve the masters of deceit. We are not born killers, but convinced by the manipulators that the cause for murderous behavior is virtuous. The best sign I ever saw at an anti-war rally said:

“Kill one person, it’s murder. Kill thousands and it’s called foreign policy.”

CJM May 11th, 2008 6:15 pm

Hey peaceman, what’s wrong with my post? I’m just spelling out official government policy for those of you too dumb to figure it for yourselves. Or if it isn’t official government policy, it might as well be.

Chuck38 May 11th, 2008 6:37 pm

As a Naval Veteran from the late 50’s I read this with intense shame to realize that our government is torturing our own Veterans by denying them the care they need, then furthering the torture by making them wait 4 1/2 years to appeal!!! All for G.W. Dickhead’s war. He and Cheney really should be tried as the war criminals they are.

Bane Richter May 11th, 2008 7:12 pm

The US Army is desperately patching holes in this controversy by requiring everyone within to “test” for Suicide Prevention.
Bust up and and destroy the useless US Army, an organization that has outlived it’s welcome in a modern democracy.
The incredible abuse of volunteers in this most recent illegal occupation is unheard of in this nation’s history, unbelievably bad conditions at Walter Reed have largely gone ignored. How people are able to tolerate this illegitimate organization is beyond belief, but a testament to the power of the ministry of truth.
No US youth should ever consider any interaction with this US Tumor, unless to protest it’s continued existence. It’s place is in the past, move on, destroy the Army. Tie a yellow ribbon around facism and destroy it quickly.

Doug Lago May 11th, 2008 7:40 pm

And yet the buffoons who continue to back George WARPIG Bush slap “Support the Troops” stickers on their cars and believe that by supporting Bush and the war they support the troops. The only people right now actually supporting the troops are those who are either exposing the truth about the crime family that is the Bush administration, like this story, or those who actively oppose this travesty of a war. Resist. It’s the ONLY moral choice.

We cannot afford to lose this upcoming election, and yet somehow I feel we already have…..

peaceman May 11th, 2008 7:41 pm

CJM: Calm down, buddy! Nothing wrong with your post. When I started to right my comments, there were six others before me. By the time mine was sent, yours was the 7th and yours truly was the 8th. Had I seen yours, I would have said, “the first 7 posters.” I agree with yours, CJM. These SOB’s look at the bottom line. Money and power, the god they worship.

All of you, please come back later and I’ll post something on what the Pentagon is trying to do to our military members. Gotta run.

GwNorth May 11th, 2008 8:12 pm

As concerned as people should be about those Veterans that will return suffering from PTSD as worrisome should be those that return who are not affected by what they have seen or done at all.

It might sound like a cruel thing to say but at least we know that those suffering from such have a conscience.

Perhaps this behind the drive of the Pentagon for that hi-tech military of robots and remote killing machines. Then they can kill without any consequences whatsoever.

Post War Germany had Allied forces escorting Germans through the death camps they so oh conveniently ignored during the war. Perhaps those who support such wars in Iraq should be forced to do tours in the slums of Baghdad.

I remember an interview of a Canadian Soldier who was in France after DDAY fighting his way through the bocage. This some 50 years after the war. He was describing how he was blown off his feet by an artillery shell then landed in a foxhole with a young German across from him. He managed to lift his gun and shoot the German before he himself was shot. He described watching the German die and how horrifying it was. This was a so called “just war”. He then broke up and started crying . Wars do not make men out of boys . They break them. The day they no longer do that is one we should all fear.

Turce May 11th, 2008 8:32 pm

18 suicides/daily
4-5 per day per VA data
300,000 new Vets suffer PTSD
320,000 suatained TBI
Only 1/2 sought treatment.
10% NEVER recover.
Unfit troops deployed : 10,584 in 2003
5,397 in 2005
9,140 in 2007
all tolled 43,000 deployed that are mentally unfit 5-7% of all troops

Please try to urge Rep’s and Senators to pay attention, ask Why, When will they be home, how long, timeline to days.
IVAW will go to the hill on 15 May 2008 to give sworn testimony.
Testimony under oath heard by the the Congressional Progressive Caucus from 9:30am to 12:30pm at 2261 Rayburn House Building.
Go to IVAW.org for details.
My bluedog(balls)Rep. isn’t there to hear, of course Dennis Kucinich will be. Please help.

peaceman May 11th, 2008 8:34 pm

GwNorth: Excellent! You said it well.

Go to, http://www.veteransforpeace.org//Newsletter.vp.html and click on March 2008 articles and read Penny Coleman’s article titled,
‘Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War’

The 28-30% still supporting this stinking, rotten regime in Washington, D.C. are like the fanatics who supported Hitler.

vaudree May 11th, 2008 8:35 pm

Life sucks but eventually it doesn’t suck as bad. A hug won’t help. Their favourite food won’t help because if you are feeling guilty and ashamed and worthless, such a treat just makes those painful feelings more intense. You have to find something that is a treat but isn’t a treat - something spartan but still worth digesting. Remember that so-and-so can’t have this treat any more and there may be a bit of survivor’s guilt - so having too wonderful a treat brings home the survivor’s guilt that so-and-so isn’t getting any.

Then there are the “fake” emotions from DU and other chemical exposures - and no knowledge of how to deal with them. They are real in pain, can mix with real emotions to become even more painful, but are no based on memories or present day things.

whatfools May 11th, 2008 8:41 pm

Sunday, 11 May 2008

“A highly sensitive internal report into the state of the British Army has revealed that many soldiers are living in poverty. Some are so poor that they are unable to eat and are forced to rely on emergency food voucher schemes set up by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).”

It seems that the Brits are buying more than just bombs and bullets on credit.

freefallen May 11th, 2008 8:54 pm

We need a bulletin board in every major city displaying the information in the first paragrapgh of this piece. These troops have been abused with their multiple rotations. Does anybody care?

(And printouts handed out at your local grocery store or mall would not be a bad idea, either.)

Siouxrose May 11th, 2008 10:23 pm

GW NORTH: Very revealing and interesting perspective related. Isn’t the US the only nation in the world with its own branch of law enforcement devoted to serial killers? Seems like the persons you mention who return without FEELING could end up on that dubious list!

Clark Kent May 11th, 2008 11:31 pm

Non-Veteran Suicide Rates are also Rather High

Just FYI, with a 19.6 suicide per 100,000 per year at the background white male suicide rate for the U.S. (2004), we’d expect a population of 24,000,000 veterans to see about 90 suicides a week if it were all white males. Rates for women and non-whites in the general population are about 9 per 100,000. The rate of 126/week is therefore significantly higher than the rate for white males in the general population and probably more alarming if we were to take into account the mix of non-white and women veterans (who have lower suicide rates in the general population). Every suicide is a tragedy, but these statistics should be viewed in the context of suicide rates in the general population.

Civilians are exposed to considerable levels of trauma too, at times.

JerryRigged May 11th, 2008 11:31 pm

The bush administration knew that if they had a draft, their power and greed mongering butts would have been toast in 2004…thus no draft. They would rather lose a war and destroy our military than lose power. All for oil company contracts…not US interests but oil company interests. Gas is $1.48/gal in US adjusted dollars in China…pretty neat trick there when a barrel is supposedly $127/barrel. If I had the financial resources to leave this country I would…Amsterdam would be a nice place to go and forget what an abomination the US government has become. So what if they speak dutch, it would make more sense than the political gibberish that passes for political discourse in media or Washington these days.

vaudree May 11th, 2008 11:43 pm

RE: Does anybody care?

Yeah,

Have you read any of the comments with the CD article about mixing up human soldier remains with animal remains. I keep thinking of that scene in a made-for-tv movie about a girl who switched the signs of the “black” and “white” water fountains so that she could see if water from the “white” water fountain tasted any different. Then came this white guy who gave himself a drink of water out of what he thought was the “white” fountain and his dog a drink from what he thought was the “black” fountain.

There were people on that thread who said they didn’t want the remains of “murderers” mixed with the remains of their pets. I thought that was sick. Sometimes I wonder if they are really anti war or just trying to encourage people who are anti war to diss soldiers.

Bush and his pro war friends don’t care about the soldiers.

Some of these soldiers need to believe that they did good just to keep themselves from going over the edge - and it is easy to write them off if they don’t share our view on the war. But if we don’t care about the soldiers then who will!

It should not matter whether a soldier agrees with us or not, if they need help and we can give it, then we should.

st john May 12th, 2008 12:30 am

vaudree, you are right about the treatment of soldiers, regardless of what we think of the war and its perpetrators. The VA is an example of what the pro-war people think of their puppets. We, as progressives and humanitarians, must advocate for all who are subject to the horrors of war and violence. The heroes are the ones who stand for peace and challenge those who don’t to truly support the troops in peace and reconciliation.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation

peace,
st john

Turce May 12th, 2008 1:01 am

Vaudree very few care about us. Try IVAW.org it will update you or VeteransforPeace.org.
You will understand what they do to us, night dear

sandyk77 May 12th, 2008 1:58 am

Nope, I’m really anti war and I belive I said I didn’t want the ashes of pentagon brainwashed baby killers mixed with my innocent furry babies.
The military has one purpose - to kill and no amount of BS propaganda will whitewash that harsh reality.
Bob Dylan’s Masters of War states this reality quite well 40 years later. If you volunteer to serve the devil he will use you up, make a ton of money and toss you in the garbage.

peaceman May 12th, 2008 2:59 am

JerryRigged: Amsterdam is a beautiful city and the Dutch also speak English. Very nice people. Like most Europeans, they know what’s going on.

yari May 12th, 2008 4:35 am

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0104-07.htm
http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5984
http://whitewatch.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/over-70000-deaths-and-over-1-million-disabilities-among-american-soldiers-attributed-to-iraq-wars-says-us-government-data/

gwenith May 12th, 2008 10:52 am

Is it possible for us all to get of the river of denial?
Can we admit we allowed a Brain Injured man to be president pf the USA?
Can we learn that damaged brain functions heal differently than we expect?
Can we explore our own brain injuries ?
Can we ?

dudleydoright May 12th, 2008 11:11 am

The other day when Bush’s daughter got married. It was reported that Bush was telling the reporters how “blessed by God he was”. Obviously, his daughter getting married would be a joyous occasion for most any family. But it thoroughly pisses me off to know how isolated from the human suffering and carnage this vile human being has perpetrated on the average man women and child manly in the covering of supposibly being God’s will! I want this bastard to for once in his “God damned life” to feel the pain he has caused. To really acknowledge how bad he has f:#$#@ked UP. and to really feel it. Where is the church’s outrage! Do they condone this killing in God’s name How dare they worry about aborting children but don’t give a damn about children walking around with arms and legs blown off!! Yeah, Bush your real “Blessed by God. I wouldn’t want your karma for all the oil in Iraq!!

luckylefty May 12th, 2008 11:15 am

Our soldiers have ALWAYS been ‘fungible’ dogmeat. Do medical experiments on them. Give them dirty ‘killer’ vaccines laced with mercury (crony profits). Walk them into “hot zones” after a nuke test. Shoot them up with plutonium (along with civilians) just to watch them die. Or march them across a mine field into enfilading automatic weapons fire, on a whim. You take the King’s shilling, you might as well take a short round right then and there. Your life is already over and what stands before you is nightmare beyond your ability to imagine. If they don’t kill you in the field, they murder you with neglect. AND ALL OF IT FOR THE PROFITS AND PRIVILEGE OF RICHFILTH ANIMALS. That has not changed in 3000 years. And we are not about to change ANY OF IT now. Soldiers die for the wealth of their Masters. Always have. What difference if they are killed there or here? They exist to die. No dignity. No honor. No respect. No humanity. Disposable dogmeat. The rest is just little pretty words for the 4th of July. And then you forget, again.

AmeriKa the beautiful. Amerika the damned of the Earth. The single greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. Bill’s coming due. Our children will pay and pay and pay and then their children will envy the dead and curse us for monsters. And they will be right to do so, but of course by then they will be thoroughly degraded, debased, and degenerate, far more so than even today. Master will have seen to it. Master is like that.

Pieces of 8.

Maplefudge May 12th, 2008 11:45 am

Military recruiters should have to make full disclosure to the boys and girls they seek to harvest for their masters. We will wreck your mind and body and abandon you. Be all you can be once we’re done with you - it won’t be much.

jclientelle May 12th, 2008 11:54 am

The other day I took a break from walking all over the city on errands and sat on a bench to eat my lunch. I was astonished to see the faces and body language of my fellow New Yorkers as they passed by. I saw one man and separately a woman openly crying. Many other faces looked frightened, sad, haunted or dull. There was little lightness, conversation or comraderie in those lunchtime crowds. I have not noticed so many faces like this since the day Kennedy was killed.

I think that despondency is a natural reaction to our national situation. There are two different sources. One is the practical damage being done here - people losing homes and jobs, pay going down, debt for higher education, neighborhoods getting worse, etc, etc. The other is psychic - knowing that in so many ways evil, greed and cruelty are prevailing and we feel powerless against it.

Civilians can ignore the evil going on. It is not so hard when you walk around insulated by an ipod and get all news from the mainstream media. But it seeps into the background consciousness anyway as news cannot be completely suppressed. To dull out the last traces of disturbance from conscience and compassion, this country prescribes enormous amounts of tranquilizers and anti-depressants. Nonetheless, I suspect civilian suicides are probably going up too. Does anyone know?

It is much much harder for soldiers to ignore the realities - one being physical damages being done to their own bodies and family life and finances. The other is the war crimes that they have seen and possibly committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was probably not what they expected. Mercenaries will not be so psychologically upset because they know from the start they are in it only for the money.

Let’s take care of the soldiers - but the only way is to stop sending them. And for them not to sign up.

jclientelle May 12th, 2008 12:00 pm

Amen Maplefudge - By the way the article above is an instant handout in front of high schools and recruiting stations.

whatever4 May 12th, 2008 12:31 pm

Added to all that, don’t forget the rapes, of our own soldiers by our own soldiers. I don’t think I saw that mentioned, or that number displayed with the dead and wounded. I can’t imagine what it’s like dealing with the war and that TOO. Can you?

I can’t help it, it’s what I think of first when I see women in uniform. With a statistic of one out of every three being sexually asaulted or raped.

Wonder what that does to their suicide rates. Or if they’ve even bothered to count them up. And I read they’ve tried to cover up murders of rape victims with fakes suicides, so who knows.

ItsNeverOver May 12th, 2008 4:07 pm

Does this sound like the way that the brave men and women who are fighting for our country’s security should be treated?

“In Camp Ar Ramadi, we often ran out of water. When our water tanks ran out, we were told we’d have to wait for KBR to come and empty out the bad water and refill our non-potable water. Some days the water smelled like sulfur, other days it smelled like straight sewage. They told us to make sure we kept our mouths closed in the showers when we complained about the smell. I can’t count the number of days I left the showers feeling dirtier than when I went in and many others shared those feelings. I know many soldiers used the water for brushing their teeth or shaving and others even used it for coffee and hot chocolate.”

I don’t think so, and neither does Rachel, the former soldier who provided this first hand account of the dangerous negligence that results from the complete lack of accountability for private contractors like KBR and Blackwater.

Rachel approached us and is ready to tell her very moving and provocative story of the contractor abuses she witnessed — everything from abominable pay discrepancies to unsafe water to electrocution due to KBR’s bad wiring.

I hope you’ll join us for a very special blog series featuring Rachel’s story. The series will be in 5 parts, Monday through Friday of this week, on our blog, Building a Progressive Future. You can subscribe to our blog through the RSS feed to stay updated on Rachel’s story and more developments on contractor behavior. Click here to subscribe: http://progressivefuture.org/blog.rss

You probably won’t be that surprised to hear about the things that Rachel witnessed — people in progressive, active circles have been talking about this serious issue for a while now. But this story has been so buried in the media that the average American doesn’t realize how widespread and severe the negligence really is. In fact, Rachel has been pressured and manipulated into keeping her story out of the media. This blog series gives us the opportunity to make this story accessible and available to everyone — not in the form of a dissociated news story, but in the words of a former soldier who saw it with her own eyes. I hope you’ll invite your friends and family to read Rachel’s story as well; you can click here to spread the word: http://www.progressivefuture.org/contractor-accountability/rachel

Thank you for your support, and we hope you’ll join us for this special event.

vaudree May 12th, 2008 4:23 pm

Dudleydoright - you forgot to mention the DU babies - babies born to civilians and American soldiers who were exposed to DU.

Whatever4: Eventually, they won’t be able to sweep this under the carpet any more and will have to deal with it. They wanted to keep the rapes silent so as not to deter women from signing up - but eventually they will have to deal with it. Rapists rape more when they think they can get away with it and are usually cowards who don’t want to pay for their crimes (so you expect them to try to cover up their crimes). One has to find out the reason each superior goes along with the cover up - is it that they wish to avoid bad publicity, is it because they think rapists make good soldiers, or is it because they protect those who do the same things they do?

RE: Your life is already over and what stands before you is nightmare beyond your ability to imagine.

One may be able to comprehend bits of it. I am allergic to airfreshioners, airfreshioner-laced personal care products and many “disinfectants” in a society which both encourages their use and caters to those who use this stuff - in other words, I get wasted when other people do drugs. If I am not careful, instead of a hangover, I go through severe chemical withdrawl.

RE: The other day when Bush’s daughter got married.

I remember George Stroumboulopoulos (The Hour) telling us that men who fly private jets are more apt to pay for sex. He joked that it was pathetic that a person had a private jet and still had to pay for sex.

But many of those who fly private jets marry into well-connected families because they have “ambitions” - so Jenna is destined to smile at crowds of people who know about her husband’s affairs. Think of it - it is a bit strange that Jenna “fell” for someone who works in the oil industry.

That isn’t going to help a Veteran who lost a spouse or significant person because they could not deal with the nightmares, the emotional attacks, the loss of cognitive ability, or an inability to stand as tall as one once did.

Can’t remember the whole thing, but here it goes:

The Night He Died

It was a child who cried the night he died
And turned into you and me
His faith and delusions killed off by the intrusion
Of his reality

One stormy night, he gave it last rights
And a burial beneath the dirt
With regret and forlorning, yet no reason for mourning
Laid out in your favourite shirt

His face was like stone, his eyes were gone
And no one would tell you how
Well it’s been how many years, since you last saw the tears
Or did it just happen now

When she notices your distance
She wants to know this instance
But it is something you just can’t explain
Then she gets tire of your excuses
And your imaginary bruises
And forgets that there still can be pain

He cries out in the night, in terror and fright
In a child tears aren’t forbidden
You have to go out on your own and dig up the bones
For no one else know where they are hidden

It was a child who cried the night he died
And turned into you and me
His faith and delusions killed off by the intrusion
Of his reality

John Freeman May 12th, 2008 5:35 pm

I have a young friend who is 17 and is going to boot camp in San Diego the first of June. While I know and believe our country needs young warriers like him, I also know we are wasting them and their gift for nothing. I am sad more than anyone could know that this next week is the last time I will see him ‘whole’. Once trained, the Marines will call him a man, (And everybody else better damn well do so, if they know what’s good for ‘em) but he will no longer be the young warrier I know.

Veteran ‘66-68

KEM PATRICK May 12th, 2008 11:22 pm

The truth of the suicides is right here. An easy three minute read.

http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du_blowinginthewind.htm

PTSD is a generic medical term for radiation poisoning, which often attacks the brain cells. The VA or government is not about to say radiation poisoning. __Not ever.__ The radiation readings in Baghdad are over 2,000 times the safe level.

vaudree May 13th, 2008 7:57 pm

PTSD and radiation poisoning have the same symptoms - that’s all. And there is no law saying you can’t have both.

KEM PATRICK May 14th, 2008 1:33 am

You have any argument about the radiation readings in Baghdad Vaudree?

KEM PATRICK May 14th, 2008 1:35 am

You have any argument that over 600,000 ground troop Iraq vets are now permanently disabled or dead of cancers? They are still young people. Did you read that link I offered?

jclientelle May 15th, 2008 9:31 am

I agree with Vaudree that PTSD and radiation poisoning are two different horrible things, each of which alone can lead to severe disability or death.

I think PTSD is a condition triggered by repeated unbearable stress which permanently affects the neural structure of the amygdala and hippocampus, which are the fear and memory centers of the brain, loosely speaking. PTSD can occur from any violence, especially repeated incidents that never allow the brain to return to a resting and recovered state. People with PTSD may never find relationships, jobs or inner peace. Direct suicide or suicide by drugs or homelessness are often results.

Radiation poisoning is another thing which affects all of the body cells and encourages harmful mutations. It is a cause of cancer and probably other conditions such as nausea and burns, which interfere with nutrition and metabolism.

Both of these conditions disable people and result in deaths, which being delayed, are not counted as war casualties. I am sure some soldiers and civilians suffer from both. Although my perception from Vietnam era is that civilians, while they suffer, greatly, do not have the guilt.

I do not trust government releases about the number and type of disabilities occur among US soldiers or Iraq people.

willybill May 11th, 2008 3:06 pm

18 veterans a day killing themselves. To err conservatively, let’s say that’s three and one half years times 18 veterans a day equals 22,995 more deaths that this deceptive, evil administration has hidden from the public. How many more lies will we allow?? And where is the respect, honor and dignity due these veterans and their friends and relatives as their demise is swept under the carpet?
st john May 11th, 2008 3:09 pm

This story has been around for at least several days, yet there is no coverage about it in Corp(se) Media. Why? The statistics are unconscionable about attempts, “successful attempts” and those who have claims for traumatic head injuries and PTSD and are waiting for awards. Regardless of what you think or how you feel about the military and its soldiers, this is a crime against humanity that must be addressed. Write your congresspeople and newspapers with a demand for coverage and immediate action. Hearings may be underway, but I have yet to hear of any of these hearings actually reaching a conclusion and any action being taken against those found culpable. Does anyone here even have direct contact with any of the presidential candidates? I suspect not, but I just ask the question.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation

peace,
st john
StuWilde May 11th, 2008 3:36 pm

American Casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan
Dead:4,569
Wounded:31,984
Injured:10,180
Ill:28,451
Received Treatment from VA:299,585
Filed A Disability Claim:287,790

These are the true numbers the mainstream media should be reporting. I am disgusted with the Bush Administration who often uses the military as a prop, but the action of the VA suggest their is loathing towards Veterans.
since1492 May 11th, 2008 3:44 pm

The truth about veteran suicides has always been around. Getting it into corporate media is impossible because they have a vested interest in not telling the whole story. More and more troops are coming home with PTSD. Starting with Korea the number of troops with PTSD has been increasing. This is happening because all our wars are now political wars. Politicians using the military to advance their political agenda. In these dirty wars the troops are witnessing horrors that they haven’t been prepared for. You can deal with your buddy getting killed, but those children and women killed won’t leave your mind. Political wars always involve civilians, including children. Just look at Iraq. American troops can win justified wars, as evidenced by WW2. But only the politician can win a political war.
The treatment of the veteran by the VA system and society at large is horrible, but understandable. The VA just doesn’t care and most Americans don’t even know what the vets have been through. Hard to fit back into a society that doesn’t understand what you have been doing in their name.
Hoa binh
pbk May 11th, 2008 4:40 pm

Is anyone really all that surprised? To hear all these statistics at one time is naturally horrifying, but there have been enough small reports, just scatching the surface to allow someone interested to start connecting dots quite some time ago. I suspect we would have to have as our military a population of total sociopaths if we expected to avoid the trauma associated with the bloodbath that has taken at least close to a million Iraqi and Afghani civilian lives. Civilians, women and children, and the elderly. Unarmed non-combatants. What sane person with any kind of basic human morality would not suffer psychologically from witnessing the nightmarish scenes that inevitably follow bombing raids in heavily populated areas, where body parts and the dead and dying are mostly civilians? This is indeed criminal, and the crime lies directly at the feet of the maniacs who manipulated the country into these “crimes against humanity”; and we as a nation, and the world in general, need to see these criminals shackled doing a perp walk in front of the same media they have so successfully turned into their private propaganda machines. Shameful indeed!
Ghawar May 11th, 2008 4:55 pm

It’s genocide. The government certainly knows the figures and the causes, yet it allows the suicides to go on. I would bet too that the government has funded studies that predicted the suicides - and it has put the findings to its use: genocide via of ptsd and suicide.

You may scoff at my accusation of genocide, but a U.S. administration that wants to commit genocide cannot copy Hitler with gas chambers and mass extermination camps, at least not yet. No, a more sophisticated form of genocide is necessary, and just as the weapons and the propaganda have grown far more sophisticated in the decades since Hitler, all of the various forms of genocide that are currently in use are also far more sophisticated. I call the new versions “genocide with plausible deniability” because their perpetrators can attribute the deaths to chance or to unpredictable circumstances and events or even to 6570 suicides per year among veterans.

The numbers are not as big as Hitler’s where thousands died in a day in the gas chambers, but remember that the veteran suicides are only one among several forms of genocide in use today that may be plausibly denied.

The way of course to deny not plausibly but irrefutably that the suicides are intentional would be to acknowledge the deaths and to take the necessary measures to see that returning veterans are given the care they need to survive. But I don’t think that will happen because, frankly, I think that once a soldier has finished his tour of duty, then the government would just as soon see him dead. Isn’t the war cheaper that way?
CJM May 11th, 2008 5:35 pm

It saves money on healthcare if they kill themselves.
peaceman May 11th, 2008 5:45 pm

The first six posters, well stated!

We can discuss this all day, but as long as military personnel are willing to participate in illegal and immoral acts of violent aggression, the suicides and PTSD will continue.

The human spirit has been seduced by highly specialized subliminal advertising to serve the masters of deceit. We are not born killers, but convinced by the manipulators that the cause for murderous behavior is virtuous. The best sign I ever saw at an anti-war rally said:

“Kill one person, it’s murder. Kill thousands and it’s called foreign policy.”
CJM May 11th, 2008 6:15 pm

Hey peaceman, what’s wrong with my post? I’m just spelling out official government policy for those of you too dumb to figure it for yourselves. Or if it isn’t official government policy, it might as well be.
Chuck38 May 11th, 2008 6:37 pm

As a Naval Veteran from the late 50’s I read this with intense shame to realize that our government is torturing our own Veterans by denying them the care they need, then furthering the torture by making them wait 4 1/2 years to appeal!!! All for G.W. Dickhead’s war. He and Cheney really should be tried as the war criminals they are.
Bane Richter May 11th, 2008 7:12 pm

The US Army is desperately patching holes in this controversy by requiring everyone within to “test” for Suicide Prevention.
Bust up and and destroy the useless US Army, an organization that has outlived it’s welcome in a modern democracy.
The incredible abuse of volunteers in this most recent illegal occupation is unheard of in this nation’s history, unbelievably bad conditions at Walter Reed have largely gone ignored. How people are able to tolerate this illegitimate organization is beyond belief, but a testament to the power of the ministry of truth.
No US youth should ever consider any interaction with this US Tumor, unless to protest it’s continued existence. It’s place is in the past, move on, destroy the Army. Tie a yellow ribbon around facism and destroy it quickly.
Doug Lago May 11th, 2008 7:40 pm

And yet the buffoons who continue to back George WARPIG Bush slap “Support the Troops” stickers on their cars and believe that by supporting Bush and the war they support the troops. The only people right now actually supporting the troops are those who are either exposing the truth about the crime family that is the Bush administration, like this story, or those who actively oppose this travesty of a war. Resist. It’s the ONLY moral choice.

We cannot afford to lose this upcoming election, and yet somehow I feel we already have…..
peaceman May 11th, 2008 7:41 pm

CJM: Calm down, buddy! Nothing wrong with your post. When I started to right my comments, there were six others before me. By the time mine was sent, yours was the 7th and yours truly was the 8th. Had I seen yours, I would have said, “the first 7 posters.” I agree with yours, CJM. These SOB’s look at the bottom line. Money and power, the god they worship.

All of you, please come back later and I’ll post something on what the Pentagon is trying to do to our military members. Gotta run.
GwNorth May 11th, 2008 8:12 pm

As concerned as people should be about those Veterans that will return suffering from PTSD as worrisome should be those that return who are not affected by what they have seen or done at all.

It might sound like a cruel thing to say but at least we know that those suffering from such have a conscience.

Perhaps this behind the drive of the Pentagon for that hi-tech military of robots and remote killing machines. Then they can kill without any consequences whatsoever.

Post War Germany had Allied forces escorting Germans through the death camps they so oh conveniently ignored during the war. Perhaps those who support such wars in Iraq should be forced to do tours in the slums of Baghdad.

I remember an interview of a Canadian Soldier who was in France after DDAY fighting his way through the bocage. This some 50 years after the war. He was describing how he was blown off his feet by an artillery shell then landed in a foxhole with a young German across from him. He managed to lift his gun and shoot the German before he himself was shot. He described watching the German die and how horrifying it was. This was a so called “just war”. He then broke up and started crying . Wars do not make men out of boys . They break them. The day they no longer do that is one we should all fear.
Turce May 11th, 2008 8:32 pm

18 suicides/daily
4-5 per day per VA data
300,000 new Vets suffer PTSD
320,000 suatained TBI
Only 1/2 sought treatment.
10% NEVER recover.
Unfit troops deployed : 10,584 in 2003
5,397 in 2005
9,140 in 2007
all tolled 43,000 deployed that are mentally unfit 5-7% of all troops

Please try to urge Rep’s and Senators to pay attention, ask Why, When will they be home, how long, timeline to days.
IVAW will go to the hill on 15 May 2008 to give sworn testimony.
Testimony under oath heard by the the Congressional Progressive Caucus from 9:30am to 12:30pm at 2261 Rayburn House Building.
Go to IVAW.org for details.
My bluedog(balls)Rep. isn’t there to hear, of course Dennis Kucinich will be. Please help.
peaceman May 11th, 2008 8:34 pm

GwNorth: Excellent! You said it well.

Go to, http://www.veteransforpeace.org//Newsletter.vp.html and click on March 2008 articles and read Penny Coleman’s article titled,
‘Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War’

The 28-30% still supporting this stinking, rotten regime in Washington, D.C. are like the fanatics who supported Hitler.
vaudree May 11th, 2008 8:35 pm

Life sucks but eventually it doesn’t suck as bad. A hug won’t help. Their favourite food won’t help because if you are feeling guilty and ashamed and worthless, such a treat just makes those painful feelings more intense. You have to find something that is a treat but isn’t a treat - something spartan but still worth digesting. Remember that so-and-so can’t have this treat any more and there may be a bit of survivor’s guilt - so having too wonderful a treat brings home the survivor’s guilt that so-and-so isn’t getting any.

Then there are the “fake” emotions from DU and other chemical exposures - and no knowledge of how to deal with them. They are real in pain, can mix with real emotions to become even more painful, but are no based on memories or present day things.
whatfools May 11th, 2008 8:41 pm

Sunday, 11 May 2008

“A highly sensitive internal report into the state of the British Army has revealed that many soldiers are living in poverty. Some are so poor that they are unable to eat and are forced to rely on emergency food voucher schemes set up by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).”

It seems that the Brits are buying more than just bombs and bullets on credit.
freefallen May 11th, 2008 8:54 pm

We need a bulletin board in every major city displaying the information in the first paragrapgh of this piece. These troops have been abused with their multiple rotations. Does anybody care?

(And printouts handed out at your local grocery store or mall would not be a bad idea, either.)
Siouxrose May 11th, 2008 10:23 pm

GW NORTH: Very revealing and interesting perspective related. Isn’t the US the only nation in the world with its own branch of law enforcement devoted to serial killers? Seems like the persons you mention who return without FEELING could end up on that dubious list!
Clark Kent May 11th, 2008 11:31 pm

Non-Veteran Suicide Rates are also Rather High

Just FYI, with a 19.6 suicide per 100,000 per year at the background white male suicide rate for the U.S. (2004), we’d expect a population of 24,000,000 veterans to see about 90 suicides a week if it were all white males. Rates for women and non-whites in the general population are about 9 per 100,000. The rate of 126/week is therefore significantly higher than the rate for white males in the general population and probably more alarming if we were to take into account the mix of non-white and women veterans (who have lower suicide rates in the general population). Every suicide is a tragedy, but these statistics should be viewed in the context of suicide rates in the general population.

Civilians are exposed to considerable levels of trauma too, at times.
JerryRigged May 11th, 2008 11:31 pm

The bush administration knew that if they had a draft, their power and greed mongering butts would have been toast in 2004…thus no draft. They would rather lose a war and destroy our military than lose power. All for oil company contracts…not US interests but oil company interests. Gas is $1.48/gal in US adjusted dollars in China…pretty neat trick there when a barrel is supposedly $127/barrel. If I had the financial resources to leave this country I would…Amsterdam would be a nice place to go and forget what an abomination the US government has become. So what if they speak dutch, it would make more sense than the political gibberish that passes for political discourse in media or Washington these days.
vaudree May 11th, 2008 11:43 pm

RE: Does anybody care?

Yeah,

Have you read any of the comments with the CD article about mixing up human soldier remains with animal remains. I keep thinking of that scene in a made-for-tv movie about a girl who switched the signs of the “black” and “white” water fountains so that she could see if water from the “white” water fountain tasted any different. Then came this white guy who gave himself a drink of water out of what he thought was the “white” fountain and his dog a drink from what he thought was the “black” fountain.

There were people on that thread who said they didn’t want the remains of “murderers” mixed with the remains of their pets. I thought that was sick. Sometimes I wonder if they are really anti war or just trying to encourage people who are anti war to diss soldiers.

Bush and his pro war friends don’t care about the soldiers.

Some of these soldiers need to believe that they did good just to keep themselves from going over the edge - and it is easy to write them off if they don’t share our view on the war. But if we don’t care about the soldiers then who will!

It should not matter whether a soldier agrees with us or not, if they need help and we can give it, then we should.
st john May 12th, 2008 12:30 am

vaudree, you are right about the treatment of soldiers, regardless of what we think of the war and its perpetrators. The VA is an example of what the pro-war people think of their puppets. We, as progressives and humanitarians, must advocate for all who are subject to the horrors of war and violence. The heroes are the ones who stand for peace and challenge those who don’t to truly support the troops in peace and reconciliation.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation

peace,
st john
Turce May 12th, 2008 1:01 am

Vaudree very few care about us. Try IVAW.org it will update you or VeteransforPeace.org.
You will understand what they do to us, night dear
sandyk77 May 12th, 2008 1:58 am

There were people on that thread who said they didn’t want the remains of “murderers” mixed with the remains of their pets. I thought that was sick. Sometimes I wonder if they are really anti war or just trying to encourage people who are anti war to diss soldiers.

Nope, I’m really anti war and I belive I said I didn’t want the ashes of pentagon brainwashed baby killers mixed with my innocent furry babies.
The military has one purpose - to kill and no amount of BS propaganda will whitewash that harsh reality.
Bob Dylan’s Masters of War states this reality quite well 40 years later. If you volunteer to serve the devil he will use you up, make a ton of money and toss you in the garbage.
peaceman May 12th, 2008 2:59 am

JerryRigged: Amsterdam is a beautiful city and the Dutch also speak English. Very nice people. Like most Europeans, they know what’s going on.
yari May 12th, 2008 4:35 am

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0104-07.htm
http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5984
http://whitewatch.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/over-70000-deaths-and-over-1-million-disabilities-among-american-soldiers-attributed-to-iraq-wars-says-us-government-data/
gwenith May 12th, 2008 10:52 am

Is it possible for us all to get of the river of denial?
Can we admit we allowed a Brain Injured man to be president pf the USA?
Can we learn that damaged brain functions heal differently than we expect?
Can we explore our own brain injuries ?
Can we ?
dudleydoright May 12th, 2008 11:11 am

The other day when Bush’s daughter got married. It was reported that Bush was telling the reporters how “blessed by God he was”. Obviously, his daughter getting married would be a joyous occasion for most any family. But it thoroughly pisses me off to know how isolated from the human suffering and carnage this vile human being has perpetrated on the average man women and child manly in the covering of supposibly being God’s will! I want this bastard to for once in his “God damned life” to feel the pain he has caused. To really acknowledge how bad he has f:#$#@ked UP. and to really feel it. Where is the church’s outrage! Do they condone this killing in God’s name How dare they worry about aborting children but don’t give a damn about children walking around with arms and legs blown off!! Yeah, Bush your real “Blessed by God. I wouldn’t want your karma for all the oil in Iraq!!
luckylefty May 12th, 2008 11:15 am

Our soldiers have ALWAYS been ‘fungible’ dogmeat. Do medical experiments on them. Give them dirty ‘killer’ vaccines laced with mercury (crony profits). Walk them into “hot zones” after a nuke test. Shoot them up with plutonium (along with civilians) just to watch them die. Or march them across a mine field into enfilading automatic weapons fire, on a whim. You take the King’s shilling, you might as well take a short round right then and there. Your life is already over and what stands before you is nightmare beyond your ability to imagine. If they don’t kill you in the field, they murder you with neglect. AND ALL OF IT FOR THE PROFITS AND PRIVILEGE OF RICHFILTH ANIMALS. That has not changed in 3000 years. And we are not about to change ANY OF IT now. Soldiers die for the wealth of their Masters. Always have. What difference if they are killed there or here? They exist to die. No dignity. No honor. No respect. No humanity. Disposable dogmeat. The rest is just little pretty words for the 4th of July. And then you forget, again.

AmeriKa the beautiful. Amerika the damned of the Earth. The single greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. Bill’s coming due. Our children will pay and pay and pay and then their children will envy the dead and curse us for monsters. And they will be right to do so, but of course by then they will be thoroughly degraded, debased, and degenerate, far more so than even today. Master will have seen to it. Master is like that.

Pieces of 8.
Maplefudge May 12th, 2008 11:45 am

Military recruiters should have to make full disclosure to the boys and girls they seek to harvest for their masters. We will wreck your mind and body and abandon you. Be all you can be once we’re done with you - it won’t be much.
jclientelle May 12th, 2008 11:54 am

The other day I took a break from walking all over the city on errands and sat on a bench to eat my lunch. I was astonished to see the faces and body language of my fellow New Yorkers as they passed by. I saw one man and separately a woman openly crying. Many other faces looked frightened, sad, haunted or dull. There was little lightness, conversation or comraderie in those lunchtime crowds. I have not noticed so many faces like this since the day Kennedy was killed.

I think that despondency is a natural reaction to our national situation. There are two different sources. One is the practical damage being done here - people losing homes and jobs, pay going down, debt for higher education, neighborhoods getting worse, etc, etc. The other is psychic - knowing that in so many ways evil, greed and cruelty are prevailing and we feel powerless against it.

Civilians can ignore the evil going on. It is not so hard when you walk around insulated by an ipod and get all news from the mainstream media. But it seeps into the background consciousness anyway as news cannot be completely suppressed. To dull out the last traces of disturbance from conscience and compassion, this country prescribes enormous amounts of tranquilizers and anti-depressants. Nonetheless, I suspect civilian suicides are probably going up too. Does anyone know?

It is much much harder for soldiers to ignore the realities - one being physical damages being done to their own bodies and family life and finances. The other is the war crimes that they have seen and possibly committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was probably not what they expected. Mercenaries will not be so psychologically upset because they know from the start they are in it only for the money.

Let’s take care of the soldiers - but the only way is to stop sending them. And for them not to sign up.
jclientelle May 12th, 2008 12:00 pm

Amen Maplefudge - By the way the article above is an instant handout in front of high schools and recruiting stations.
whatever4 May 12th, 2008 12:31 pm

Added to all that, don’t forget the rapes, of our own soldiers by our own soldiers. I don’t think I saw that mentioned, or that number displayed with the dead and wounded. I can’t imagine what it’s like dealing with the war and that TOO. Can you?

I can’t help it, it’s what I think of first when I see women in uniform. With a statistic of one out of every three being sexually asaulted or raped.

Wonder what that does to their suicide rates. Or if they’ve even bothered to count them up. And I read they’ve tried to cover up murders of rape victims with fakes suicides, so who knows.
ItsNeverOver May 12th, 2008 4:07 pm

Does this sound like the way that the brave men and women who are fighting for our country’s security should be treated?

“In Camp Ar Ramadi, we often ran out of water. When our water tanks ran out, we were told we’d have to wait for KBR to come and empty out the bad water and refill our non-potable water. Some days the water smelled like sulfur, other days it smelled like straight sewage. They told us to make sure we kept our mouths closed in the showers when we complained about the smell. I can’t count the number of days I left the showers feeling dirtier than when I went in and many others shared those feelings. I know many soldiers used the water for brushing their teeth or shaving and others even used it for coffee and hot chocolate.”

I don’t think so, and neither does Rachel, the former soldier who provided this first hand account of the dangerous negligence that results from the complete lack of accountability for private contractors like KBR and Blackwater.

Rachel approached us and is ready to tell her very moving and provocative story of the contractor abuses she witnessed — everything from abominable pay discrepancies to unsafe water to electrocution due to KBR’s bad wiring.

I hope you’ll join us for a very special blog series featuring Rachel’s story. The series will be in 5 parts, Monday through Friday of this week, on our blog, Building a Progressive Future. You can subscribe to our blog through the RSS feed to stay updated on Rachel’s story and more developments on contractor behavior. Click here to subscribe: http://progressivefuture.org/blog.rss

You probably won’t be that surprised to hear about the things that Rachel witnessed — people in progressive, active circles have been talking about this serious issue for a while now. But this story has been so buried in the media that the average American doesn’t realize how widespread and severe the negligence really is. In fact, Rachel has been pressured and manipulated into keeping her story out of the media. This blog series gives us the opportunity to make this story accessible and available to everyone — not in the form of a dissociated news story, but in the words of a former soldier who saw it with her own eyes. I hope you’ll invite your friends and family to read Rachel’s story as well; you can click here to spread the word: http://www.progressivefuture.org/contractor-accountability/rachel

Thank you for your support, and we hope you’ll join us for this special event.
vaudree May 12th, 2008 4:23 pm

Dudleydoright - you forgot to mention the DU babies - babies born to civilians and American soldiers who were exposed to DU.

Whatever4: Eventually, they won’t be able to sweep this under the carpet any more and will have to deal with it. They wanted to keep the rapes silent so as not to deter women from signing up - but eventually they will have to deal with it. Rapists rape more when they think they can get away with it and are usually cowards who don’t want to pay for their crimes (so you expect them to try to cover up their crimes). One has to find out the reason each superior goes along with the cover up - is it that they wish to avoid bad publicity, is it because they think rapists make good soldiers, or is it because they protect those who do the same things they do?

RE: Your life is already over and what stands before you is nightmare beyond your ability to imagine.

One may be able to comprehend bits of it. I am allergic to airfreshioners, airfreshioner-laced personal care products and many “disinfectants” in a society which both encourages their use and caters to those who use this stuff - in other words, I get wasted when other people do drugs. If I am not careful, instead of a hangover, I go through severe chemical withdrawl.

RE: The other day when Bush’s daughter got married.

I remember George Stroumboulopoulos (The Hour) telling us that men who fly private jets are more apt to pay for sex. He joked that it was pathetic that a person had a private jet and still had to pay for sex.

But many of those who fly private jets marry into well-connected families because they have “ambitions” - so Jenna is destined to smile at crowds of people who know about her husband’s affairs. Think of it - it is a bit strange that Jenna “fell” for someone who works in the oil industry.

That isn’t going to help a Veteran who lost a spouse or significant person because they could not deal with the nightmares, the emotional attacks, the loss of cognitive ability, or an inability to stand as tall as one once did.

Can’t remember the whole thing, but here it goes:

The Night He Died

It was a child who cried the night he died
And turned into you and me
His faith and delusions killed off by the intrusion
Of his reality

One stormy night, he gave it last rights
And a burial beneath the dirt
With regret and forlorning, yet no reason for mourning
Laid out in your favourite shirt

His face was like stone, his eyes were gone
And no one would tell you how
Well it’s been how many years, since you last saw the tears
Or did it just happen now

When she notices your distance
She wants to know this instance
But it is something you just can’t explain
Then she gets tire of your excuses
And your imaginary bruises
And forgets that there still can be pain

He cries out in the night, in terror and fright
In a child tears aren’t forbidden
You have to go out on your own and dig up the bones
For no one else know where they are hidden

It was a child who cried the night he died
And turned into you and me
His faith and delusions killed off by the intrusion
Of his reality
John Freeman May 12th, 2008 5:35 pm

I have a young friend who is 17 and is going to boot camp in San Diego the first of June. While I know and believe our country needs young warriers like him, I also know we are wasting them and their gift for nothing. I am sad more than anyone could know that this next week is the last time I will see him ‘whole’. Once trained, the Marines will call him a man, (And everybody else better damn well do so, if they know what’s good for ‘em) but he will no longer be the young warrier I know.

Veteran ‘66-68
KEM PATRICK May 12th, 2008 11:22 pm

The truth of the suicides is right here. An easy three minute read.

http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du_blowinginthewind.htm

PTSD is a generic medical term for radiation poisoning, which often attacks the brain cells. The VA or government is not about to say radiation poisoning. __Not ever.__ The radiation readings in Baghdad are over 2,000 times the safe level.
vaudree May 13th, 2008 7:57 pm

PTSD and radiation poisoning have the same symptoms - that’s all. And there is no law saying you can’t have both.
KEM PATRICK May 14th, 2008 1:33 am

You have any argument about the radiation readings in Baghdad Vaudree?
KEM PATRICK May 14th, 2008 1:35 am

You have any argument that over 600,000 ground troop Iraq vets are now permanently disabled or dead of cancers? They are still young people. Did you read that link I offered?
jclientelle May 15th, 2008 9:31 am

I agree with Vaudree that PTSD and radiation poisoning are two different horrible things, each of which alone can lead to severe disability or death.

I think PTSD is a condition triggered by repeated unbearable stress which permanently affects the neural structure of the amygdala and hippocampus, which are the fear and memory centers of the brain, loosely speaking. PTSD can occur from any violence, especially repeated incidents that never allow the brain to return to a resting and recovered state. People with PTSD may never find relationships, jobs or inner peace. Direct suicide or suicide by drugs or homelessness are often results.

Radiation poisoning is another thing which affects all of the body cells and encourages harmful mutations. It is a cause of cancer and probably other conditions such as nausea and burns, which interfere with nutrition and metabolism.

Both of these conditions disable people and result in deaths, which being delayed, are not counted as war casualties. I am sure some soldiers and civilians suffer from both. Although my perception from Vietnam era is that civilians, while they suffer, greatly, do not have the guilt.

I do not trust government releases about the number and type of disabilities occur among US soldiers or Iraq people.

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