Guard, Reserves Hit Hardest By Vet Suicide

[sabra]

Source: CBS/AP

Study: More Than Half Of Veterans Who Took Own Lives In Recent Wars Were In National Guard, Reserves


(CBS/AP) More than half of all veterans who took their own lives after returning from Iraq or Afghanistan were members of the National Guard or Reserves, according to new government data that prompted activists on Tuesday to call for a closer examination of the problem.

In November, CBS News was the first to investigate the suicide epidemic in detail and Congress took up the cause in December.

A Department of Veterans Affairs analysis of ongoing research of deaths among veterans of both wars - obtained by The Associated Press - found that Guard or Reserve members accounted for 53 percent of the veteran suicides from 2001, when the war in Afghanistan began, through the end of 2005.

The research, conducted by the department's Office of Environmental Epidemiology, provides the first demographic look at suicides among veterans from those wars who left the military.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/12/health/main3823731.shtml

[Voltaire99]

1. Thanks, Rethugs and Democrats who gave us this war.

Time for Siegfried Sassoon, I see...


Suicide in the Trenches


I KNEW a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
. . . .

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thanks for posting this: never heard it until now. Powerful. So sad it had to be written. n/t

[Steerpike]

3. Very apropo.

The horrors of war and so far from home
behind your goggles you float alone
Dead and wounded haunting dreams
blood drips red on bayonets gleam
So nothing matters and life is cheap
stand before the abyss and darkness deep
will people care if you kill yourself?
will people stop loving or gathering wealth?
the young one contemplate the coming shot
but loneliness dwells in a dark red clot...
He'd like to play and be well fed
He takes his weapon and

[bulloney]

4. It takes a certain mindset to enlist with the understanding you may be thrown into combat.

I think most of your National Guards and Reserves signed up with the thought their toughest challenge would be to attend occasional training and address domestic natural disasters and the like. When they are sent to Iraq and thrown into the situations they faced there, it's too much for their minds to process rationally.

[salin]

5. I have to wonder if a contributing factor is also the lower levels

of support (financial, medical, etc.) that the national guards have oompared to full time servicefolks. I haven't read much about it lately, but there were many stories a couple of years ago when the pentagon started calling up reserves for second and third tours about the great discrepencies in benefits and the fiancial hardships faced by the guard and reserves.

[flashl]

6. Repost

Same thread

The immeasurable damage to the Guard, Reserve, States, and communities across the country has yet to be revealed. First, this admin usurped Governors authority to activate Guard and Reserve, and second, the admin played fast and lose with federal guidelines after activating the reserves.

One reason Guard and Reserves are returned to their communities without help, this admin never allowed the guardsperson or reservist service time abroad to reach the federal service threshold. Meaning, although the individual was physically on the ground abroad for more than a year, their service time never reached the 179-day trigger for federal time. This denies returning personnel the ability to effectively make a VA claim or receive medical care.

[salin]

8. I read to quickly. Bah - on this I hate to be right

these folks (WH and Pentagon) make me ILL. Their contempt for people - esp people whose life they endanger - by playing games to prevent due compensation and care - makes me nauseous.

[HelenWheels]

7. They should all be counted in the death toll

but it won't happen because it would reflect badly on those who forced them to fight for a lie.