Suicide & The End of the Iraq War

In August of this year the

U.S. Army reported 32 suicides and potential suicides in the month of July, the highest total since the service began publicly releasing such statistics 2 ½ years ago.

This is disturbing in and of itself, if one doesn’t recall that over 2 ½ years ago, Dr. Ira Katz, a VA mental health officer sent an email estimating that

there were about 18 suicides a day, or about 6,570 per year, among America’s veterans

following a hearing in the House Veterans’ Committee in May of 2008, as was widely reported in the mainstream media.  At the time there was fear of a bureaucratic cover up, which might explain why the NYDailyNews.com reported that in 2009, only

128 soldiers committed suicide [with]  another 15 suspected cases… pending. [The previous] month, Army officials believe that 24 soldiers killed themselves – compared with just four in January 2008.

Interestingly, this is about the time they started “publicly releasing such information.”  The same article reports that “In a rare move,

the Army released monthly suicide data… to highlight the growing problem. [And that] Army officials said its suicide rates were at their highest in nearly 30 years.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International reported that a study released by the Army back in June of 2009

indicated that nearly as many American troops at home and abroad committed suicide in the first six months of 2006 as the number who had been killed in combat in Afghanistan during the same time period.

This article invokes the high numbers cited in 2008, and further complicates a messy issue in confronting the fact that

by the time of the 2007 surge more than 20,000 of our deployed troops were taking antidepressants and sleeping pills.

Why is suicide is such a problem for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Numbers aside, it’s clear that yes, it is a problem, and it is still a problem.

Though tomorrow marks the official end of the war, it’s an end that came too late for far too many people, including Staff Sergeant Seth Andrews and his wife, Hillary Andrews.

So as President Obama waxes poetic about our noble withdrawal from Iraq, and the residents of Fallujah celebrate; while thousands of Occupiers take to the streets, parks and ports all around the country; and while Presidential hopefuls exploit the lives of our troops for their own ends (See: Gingrich, Romney, Obama), let’s not lose sight of the fact that there are yet around 70,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and let us look to the future with hope and pride, and watch as U.S Troops are already being deployed on the borders of our next Middle Eastern target: Syria.