On Oct. 31, it was reported preliminary research from the VA had found that from the start of the war in Afghanistan, Oct. 7, 2001, to the end of 2005, 283 troops who served and had been discharged from the military had committed suicide. In a report last May, the VA inspector general said VA officials estimate 1,000 suicides per year among veterans receiving care from the agency and as many as 5,000 a year among all veterans.
Here are perhaps the most shocking numbers: 18 veterans per-day, and more than 120 per-week, commit suicide in the United States. Of all those testifying Tuesday, none was more moving and illustrative to what this epidemic does, than Mike and Kim Bowman. Their son, an Army National Guard soldier, killed himself last Thanksgiving. From their testimony: Every one of those at risk veterans also has a family that will suffer if that soldier finds the only way to take the battlefield pain away is by taking his or her own life. Their ravished and broken spirits are then passed on to their families as they try to justify what has happened. I now suffer from the same mental illnesses that claimed my son’s life, PTSD, from the images and sounds of finding him and hearing his life fade away, and depression from a loss that I would not wish on anyone.
At the hearing, Ilona Meagher, author of a book on returning veterans with PTSD, asked why the VA didn’t learn lessons from the Vietnam War. 2004
