Over ten years ago, I started writing regular pieces at
Editor & Publisher and elsewhere (and then in my book
So Wrong for So Long) on the then-hidden but surging problem of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and vets of those wars, attempting suicide. One of my first, then regular, sources was Paul Reickhoff, director of leading vet group IAVA. Today
his group came out with a survey that goes beyond the continuing rise in suicides.
Nearly one in three post-9/11 veterans – 30 percent – has considered
suicide. Forty-five percent of those who served Iraq and Afghanistan
know a veteran who has thought about taking his or her own life. And 37
percent know a veteran who has committed suicide.
Those grim statistics are among the results of a new survey
released Wednesday conducted by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of
America (IAVA.) The study, which IAVA does annually, also found deep
unhappiness at how lawmakers in Washington treats those who put their
lives on the line in combat.
1 comment:
Inexcusable.
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