Invisible Wounds of War by Marguerite Guzman Bouvard

Author:Marguerite Guzman Bouvard
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61614-554-5
Publisher: Prometheus Books

THE FACTS

How many veterans came stateside and didn’t care whether they would live or die? The number is shocking: More active duty soldiers and veterans have died from suicide than from combat wounds.2 Each one of them deserves to be remembered and honored. In November, CBS News reviewed data from all fifty states in 2005 and found that there were at least 6,256 cases of suicide among those who had served in the armed forces.3 According to military records, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have the highest rate of suicides.4 Veterans in the range of twenty to twenty-four years old are the most frequent victims.5 The Department of Defense has revealed that an average of eighteen veterans a day from all wars are committing suicide, including one veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan every thirty-six hours.6 Multiple deployments and redeployments of personnel who are suffering from PTSD are among many factors causing this high rate.7

The Department of Defense has released some data about suicides yearly since 2005. But there is insufficient accounting of how many of our soldiers take their own lives because so many of them do so months or even years after they return home. Captain Shannon Meehan, a former leader of a tank platoon for the 1st Cavalry Division of the US Army and author of Beyond Duty, has clearly expressed what too many people fail to understand, how combat can lead to suicide. “War erodes one’s regard for human life. Soldiers cause or witness so many deaths . . . that it becomes routine. It becomes an accepted part of existence. After a while, you can begin to lose regard for your own life as well. So many around you have already died, why should it matter if you go next? That is why so many soldiers self-destruct. The deaths that I caused also killed any regard I had for my own life. . . . I fell into a downward spiral, doubting if I even deserved to be alive. The value, or regard, I once had for my own life dissipated.”8

According to Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, someone considering suicide feels despair, the loss of hope for the future. In fact, the future gives way to a horrible present and a painful past. Family, friends, and military comrades can no longer serve as protection if the despair is deep enough.9

When our soldiers return home in need of mental-health support, they find a country that is obsessed with budget cutting. Legislation to repair damages for members of the Army’s Individual Ready Reserve, a category that does not enjoy the unit-based care of other reservists, was on the congressional agenda. That bill was approved by both houses of Congress in late 2009, but it got stuck in final conference for supposed budgetary reasons. According to Representative Rush Holt, Democrat from New Jersey and a sponsor of the bill, one of his constituents, Sergeant Coleman Bean, was a unit-free reservist who did two tours of duty in Iraq and committed suicide while on a waiting list for PTSD treatment.

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