The film that accompanies Nicholas D. Kristof's New York Times story makes me incredibly sad -- and pisses me off. Why isn't more being done to take care of these young people that we send to war?
THERE’S a window into a tragedy within the American military: For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands.
An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.
3 comments:
Thank you for posting this Mike,
And for remembering that the war is never over for vets.
One group that has a very low rate of self destruction among its members is Iraq Veterans Against the War, IVAW.org, open to anyone who has a DD 214 issued since Sept 11th, 2001.
IVAW members work together on issues and actions while supporting each other. They also educate on the true costs and causes of war.
For vets from earlier times, there is VeteransForPeace.org, with a similar mission and over 25 years of working to stop our current wars, prevent the next one, and taking care of veterans.
Our country does not have to continue on this suicidal path.
nancy S.
Thanks for the information, Nancy. What about resources for vets in Wyoming? Contact numbers, web sites, etc.
www.IVAW.org, look under Chapters, and Colorado.
and
www.VeteransForPeace.org, I'm the contact for the state, I can also contact members in the Casper-Douglas area. At the website, go to VFP Chapters, Find a Chapter, and download the PDF of Chapter contacts.
I won't put any email addys on this forum, I get enough spam from web crawlers as it is.
nancy S.
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