Greg Mitchell: Veteran Suicides Continue to Rise

[babylonsister]

Veteran Suicides Continue to Rise
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2008-05-16 19:53.

By Greg Mitchell, Huffington Post



Yet another veteran of the Iraq war committed suicide over the weekend, this time in Indiana, as a kind of national mental health crisis deepens.

The San Francisco Chronicle is out today with a shocking report: In California in 2006, 666 veterans committed suicide -- 21 percent of the 3,198 suicides in the state that year, according to the California Department of Public Health. Yet that year, the 2.1 million veterans in the state represented only 6 percent of the state's residents.

As a further sign of mounting worries, Kerri Childress, a V.A. spokeswoman, told the paper that the department now has more than 17,000 mental health workers -- and needs to hire 3,700 more, making the V.A. the largest mental health provider in the nation.

The subject of U.S. military veteran suicides, which I have covered at Editor & Publisher for nearly five years, has finally become a hot media topic in recent days, peaking last week with hearings in Congress concerning the surprisingly high suicide rate (about 1,000 attempts per month) and the V.A.'s apparent efforts to cover up the true numbers.

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/33471

[EFerrari]

1. Isn't Greg the editor of Editor & Publisher? n/t

[babylonsister]

2. Yes, he is. nt

[Tangerine LaBamba]

3. He has a great book out now

I cannot recommend it highly enough: "So Wrong For So Long: How The Press, The Pundits - And The President - Failed On Iraq."

http://www.amazon.com/So-Wrong-Long-Pundits-President-Failed/dp/1402756577

[EFerrari]

5. Thanks! I always an interested in his perspective.

:)

[lyonn]

4. Stop loss policy; 15 month tours, less time at home

to recoup some sanity all leads to major stress. We should at least shorten their tours and not keep guy and gals in long after their enlisted time is up due to stop loss policy, some are in their 40's for heaven sakes - in a country where you could be shot at anytime or any place.

So what if we cut back on our troop level by changing these tours - I haven't heard lately that we are "winning".