Suicides have killed more US soldiers than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined; the current phenomenon of high suicide rates among former US soldiers is an important issue the Department of Veteran Affairs is starting to focus on, as the country marked Veterans Day on Wednesday.
According to the US Department of Veteran Affairs, every day 22 veterans take their own lives.
The statistics, however, don’t show the whole picture which is even grimmer since the suicide rate is higher for veterans aged 18-29. In other words, the suicide rate among post 9/11 war veterans has skyrocketed … a fact that exposes the immoral and destructive nature of post-9-11 military operations.
One of the leading causes of suicide among war veterans is the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). That’s probably why the suicide rate among veterans is 50 percent higher than those of civilians.
PTSD is the name the military has given to the trauma-related mental/spiritual damage inflicted upon the psyches of young men and women sent into illegal and immoral wars and forced to do despicable things. It takes a toll on their minds. The memories of the horrific things they were forced to commit by psychopathic military leaders stays with them after they come home. Those memories, and the feeling of hopelessness and shame, destroy them mentally. So they kill themselves to stop the mental misery.
“When there are flashbacks or nightmares there is really no control over it. You try to, but there really isn’t. It’s a complete loss of control,” Iraqi War veteran Robert Kingsley said.
The numbers are staggering — when members of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) were asked to talk about suicide, it was revealed that 40 percent of them knew someone who had died of suicide and 31 percent said they had contemplated taking their own lives since joining the military.
Often, the problem is that official military reports tend to ignore that war itself has anything to do with the suicide problem.
_______________________________________________________________