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TechnoratiDr. 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!
CBS News did its own extensive research, finding that more than 6,250 American veterans took their own lives in 2005 alone. That comes to slightly more than 17 suicides every day.
Most of the data was obtained by discovery in the case of Veterans for Common Sense v. Peake, now pending in U.S. District Court in California. Veterans for Common Sense has spent years seeking this information under the Freedom of Information Act as well as through discovery ancillary to its lawsuit.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am a member of Veterans for Common Sense, and I have an application pending with the VA for an increase of my disability pension as a Purple Heart combat veteran of World War II.
The litigation against Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake is uncovering more than the familiar amalgam of government secrecy, cover-up and deception by still another federal agency.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is vital to the protection and support of our troops. This support has carried an implied exception, namely cost-cutting for veterans' health care after they have served their country.
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.
• A higher percentage of these veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder than from any previous war because of "stop loss" or an involuntary extension of service in the military (58,300), multiple tours, greater prevalence of brain injuries, etc.
The Veterans for Common Sense case has already uncovered widespread breakdown of the VA's health care for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The Rand Corp. study demonstrates that, in addition to the 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans diagnosed with PTSD, an additional 320,000 have sustained physical brain damage resulting from traumatic brain injury. A majority of these injured GIs are receiving no help from the Defense Department or the VA, which are more concerned with covering up such unpleasant facts than providing care and paying disability pensions.
The Rand Corp. study concludes:
"Individuals afflicted with these conditions face higher risk 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. ... These conditions can impair relationships, disrupt marriages, aggravate the difficulties of parenting, and cause problems in children that may extend consequences of combat trauma across generations."
The Defense Department's Task Force on Mental Health has begun to recognize "daunting and growing" psychological problems among our troops. Nearly 40 percent of our soldiers, a third of our Marines, and half of the National Guard members are presenting with serious mental health issues.
The administration and Congress must come to grips with this grave and growing problem among our returning vets. The suicide rates, domestic violence and the strain on families need to be recognized, and timely health care provided. Proper screening and treatment are essential. Our returning troops are entitled to nothing less.
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.
Emanuel Margolis is an attorney in Stamford, a former chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and an adjunct professor of First Amendment law at Quinnipiac Law School.
Copyright © 2008, The Hartford Courant
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10 Comments so far
Show AllThe Mode of Operation has been say whatever needs to be said to the public so that they can do whatever they want.
Where do you start? Seems our majority of citizens are happy to sit in their stool!
This is, no doubt, a very secretive government. Cover up, deny, lie.
Will a thousand investigations be enough to reveal the travesties for which our corporate controlled government is responsible?
With Fox reporting "Fair and Balanced news" to a vast audience
what chance do we have to influence the course of coming events?
I'm appalled with what the US government has been doing for the last several decades, Democrats or Republicans seem to be doing the same things in different ways.
I haven't a lot of hope for this country or the world.
I haven't yet read this article, but will just say that the following article should be read by everyone who cares about the need for the U.S. Constitution, and so on, to be RESPECTED.
"#16 No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11
in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2008
Source:
The Muckraker Report, June 6, 2006, and Ithaca Journal, June 29, 2006
Title: "FBI says, 'No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11'"
Author: Ed Haas
..."
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/
16-no-hard-evidence-connecting-bin-laden-to-9-11
People wishing to [truly] support the troops, which is to get the U.S. forces withdrawn from Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, and when remembering those killed and badly injured, physically and psychologically, hence also those who've committed suicide; MAKE SURE TO READ THIS ABOVE ARTICLE.
It's an excellent research work that Ed Haas did, and PC provided also excellent analysis.
I'm not sure, but believe the source article, by Haas, may contain some additional information or analysis, or maybe not; but it's short enough to read anyway, so I'm certainly reading also the original source piece. The TeamLiberty article or copy thereof also provides additional related article links.
SEE what the troops are really fighting, dying, ... for; it's the least we owe them in terms of their human rights and dignity, which they unfortunately did not keep sufficiently careful guard, watch over, allowing themselves to be maliciously fooled.
The mental health of soldiers being covered up is consistent with our government's handling of the entire debacle of this war. The only thing this administration can do well is cover up and stonewall. I imagine that this need to hide the statistic of PTSD and other traumatic brain injury and the emotional scars of being involved in an unjust war must make for a climate that discourages troops from even talking about their experiences and their reactions mentally and emotionally. In order to heal, these troops need to be able to talk to others who might understand; those who have experienced similar things; those who might be thinking similar things. This effort to deny the extent of mental/emotional illness will not help in making treatment and counseling available. These soldiers, rather than being helped, are being marginalized, or worse, stop-lossed.
Several thoughts came to mind as I read this.
1. Why is the VA in the business of providing medical care? Their facilities are too often out of reach geographically speaking and subprime in terms of the medical quality provided. Let the vets be placed in the same government plan as all the rest of the Federal workers and then allow them the choice of whether they want Traditional insurance, PPO or an HMO. Then if they wanted, they could leave those crappy VA facilities behind. Of course the providers available to the general public are lacking too, but that's a story for another article. The VA should be there to make sure the rights of the vets are protected, not killing them off.
2. What happened to all the sloganeering about "Support our Troops?" What effect did all the jawboning and slathering of bumper stickers accomplish? Neglect? Abuse? Forgetfulness? Patriotism, it turns out, is the ugliest word in the American version of the English language.
Is there any long term effective
treatment for PTSD?
Can you fit a prosthetic device
of anyone who has PTSD?
Would that be a cure?
Suicide is sure to stop the symptoms but survivors then have yet another set of problems with which to deal.
since 1492: good point
the soldier is expecting to fight an army, not blow up women and children.
that coupled with the realization that the whole war was predicated on lies leads to depression and, ultimately, suicide. thanks, george, you little preppie shit stain.
If the Obamaniacs, Clintonistas, and Naderites insult each other enough on CommonDreams this'll all be fixed!
The administration of the VA doesn't exist to maximize the provision of health care to veterans; it exists to minimize costs so more money can be handed over to the private-sector military contractors that finance re-election campaigns. Despite all of the flattering flowery speeches being uttered across the country today, vets are simply considered to be cannon fodder. If they weren't, they'd be treated much differently.
More and more guys are coming home with mental problems because they are seeing too many contradictions. Today's wars are so much dirtier than in the past. WW2 was probably our last 'clean' war. Today's soldier willingly marches off to war with an unrealistic idea of what they are getting into, and they have no idea who their enemy is. They aren't prepared to see what they are exposed to in the war. They expect and accept seeing fellow soldiers blown to bits. But they aren't ready for the dead children and women. This makes them start to question their decision to volunteer, triggering contradictions their heads. They come home to a society that basically doesn't know or even care about what they have just lived through. And a VA system that completely fails in its mission. You put all these things together and the suicides seem natural. We live in a pretty sick country.
Hoa binh