18 Suicides Daily

This article comes from John Koopman of the SF Chronicle; I've included some choice moments below. While I imagine most everyone who reads my blog is against the war in Iraq, this article really got to me. 18 veterans on average are committing suicide each day upon returning from war? That's not acceptable. It's just not. I'm going to look into what civilians like us can be doing to help soldiers returning to a hostile country from a hostile war. But doing nothing is not an option.

"The number of veterans who commit suicide is growing, and it is causing major concern among veterans groups and lawmakers. A recent report by CBS News, now supported by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, indicates that an average of 18 veterans commit suicide every day nationwide.

In California in 2006, 666 veterans committed suicide - 21 percent of the 3,198 suicides that year, according to the California Department of Public Health. Yet that year, the 2.1 million veterans in the state represented only 6 percent of the state's 37.1 million residents.

The suicide figures among veterans have caught congressional attention. Two senators have demanded the resignation of Ira Katz, the VA official who wrote "Shh" at the top of the e-mail dealing with suicide attempts and disputed the statistics in public testimony while confirming them in internal documents. A House committee has scheduled a hearing on veterans' suicides this week.

But testimony in a lawsuit - brought by veterans groups seeking an order to force the VA to promptly screen and treat those at risk of suicide and set timetables for handling claims for medical benefits - indicated there was evidence that returning troops are taking their own lives in greater numbers. Witnesses and plaintiffs said there has been a steady increase in the veterans' suicide rate since 2001, and a comparatively high rate among veterans ages 20 to 24. The suit was heard by federal District Court Judge Samuel Conti, who has yet to make a ruling.
During the trial, witnesses testified the suicide rate for those veterans was anywhere from two to 7.5 times the rate among the general population.

The causes for this increase in veterans' suicide rates aren't well understood, but mental-health professionals say the biggest problem is post-traumatic stress disorder. The ailment, better-known as PTSD, is thought to afflict up to 30 percent of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Romeo Horvath returned from Iraq with a bad case of PTSD, and while he is not suicidal, he said, that's not uncommon even in Iraq.

A military police officer, Horvath was on watch in a guard tower one night and heard a gunshot from within the compound. Over the radio, someone announced that a Marine had just shot himself.

'A lot of people get this feeling of helplessness,' he said. 'Some guy has a girlfriend, and she's cheating on him. Can't call home, can't go try to work things out. You just sit there and think about it over and over again. You can go crazy'."

You can also read this effective column on Huffington Post by James Boyce.