The Truth About Veteran Suicides
by Aaron Glantz




Eighteen American war veterans kill themselves every day. One thousand former soldiers receiving care from the Department of Veterans Affairs attempt suicide every month. More veterans are committing suicide than are dying in combat overseas.

These are statistics that most Americans don't know, because the Bush administration has refused to tell them. Since the start of the Iraq War, the government has tried to present it as a war without casualties.

In fact, they never would have come to light were it not for a class action lawsuit brought by Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth on behalf of the 1.7 million Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The two groups allege the Department of Veterans Affairs has systematically denied mental health care and disability benefits to veterans returning from the conflict zones.

The case, officially known as Veterans for Common Sense vs. Peake, went to trial last month at a Federal Courthouse in San Francisco. The two sides are still filing briefs until May 19 and waiting for a ruling from Judge Samuel Conti, but the case is already having an impact.

"Shh!"
That's because over the course of the two-week trial, the VA was compelled to produce a series of documents that show the extent of the crisis affecting wounded soldiers.

"Shh!" begins one e-mail from Dr. Ira Katz, the head of the VA's Mental Health Division, advising a media spokesperson not to tell CBS News that 1,000 veterans receiving care at the VA try to kill themselves every month.

"Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" the e-mail concludes.

Leading Democrats on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee immediately called for Katz's resignation. On May 6, the Chair of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, Bob Filner (D-CA) convened a hearing titled "The Truth About Veteran's Suicides" and called Katz and VA Secretary James Peake to testify.

"That e-mail was in poor tone but the content was part of a dialogue about what we should do about new information," Katz said in response to Filner's questions. "The e-mail represents a healthy dialogue among members of VA staff about when it's appropriate to disclose and make public information early in the process."

Filner was nonplused and accused Katz and Peake of a "cover-up."

"We should all be angry about what has gone on here," Filner said. "This is a matter of life and death for the veterans that we are responsible for and I think there was criminal negligence in the way this was handled. If we do not admit, assume or know then the problem will continue and people will die. If that's not criminal negligence, I don't know what is."

A Pattern
It's also part of a pattern. The high number of veteran suicides weren't the only government statistics the Bush Administration was forced to reveal because of the class action lawsuit.

Another set of documents presented in court showed that in the six months leading up to March 31, a total of 1,467 veterans died waiting to learn if their disability claim would be approved by the government. A third set of documents showed that veterans who appeal a VA decision to deny their disability claim have to wait an average of 1,608 days, or nearly four and a half years, for their answer.

Other casualty statistics are not directly concealed, but are also not revealed on a regular basis. For example, the Pentagon regularly reports on the numbers of American troops "wounded" in Iraq (currently at 31,948) but neglects to mention that it has two other categories "injured" (10,180) and "ill" (28,451). All three of these categories represent soldiers who are so damaged physically they have to be medically evacuated to Germany for treatment, but by splitting the numbers up the sense of casualties down the public consciousness.

Here's another number that we don't often hear discussed in the media: 287,790. That's the number of returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who had filed a disability claim with the Veterans Administration as of March 25th. That figure was not announced to the public at a news conference, but obtained by Veterans for Common Sense using the Freedom of Information Act.

Why all the secrecy? Why is it so hard to get accurate casualty figures out of our government? Because the Bush Administration knows if Americans woke up to the real, human costs of this war they would fight harder to oppose it.

Some 'Cakewalk'
Think back to 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, when leading neo-conservative thinker and Donald Rumsfeld aide Ken Adelman predicted the war would be a "cakewalk."

Or consider this statement from Vice President **** Cheney. Two days before the invasion, Cheney told NBC's Tim Russert the war would "go relatively quickly…(ending in) weeks rather than months."

Today, those comments are gone but the motivation behind them remains. This is why the VA's head of mental health wrote "Shh!" telling a spokesperson not to respond to a reporters' inquiry.

But all the shhing in the world cannot stop the horrible pain that's mounting after five years of war in Iraq and nearly seven years of war in Afghanistan.

Unpleasant Facts
According to an April 2008 study by the Rand Corporation, 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans currently suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression. Another 320,000 suffer from traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage. A majority are not receiving help from the Pentagon and VA system which are more concerned with concealing unpleasant facts than they are with providing care.

In its study, the RAND Corporation wrote that the federal government fails to care for war veterans at its own peril – noting post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury "can have far-reaching and damaging consequences."

"Individuals afflicted with these conditions face higher risks for other psychological problems and for attempting suicide. They have higher rates of unhealthy behaviors – such as smoking, overeating, and unsafe sex – and higher rates of physical health problems and mortality. Individuals with these conditions also tend to miss more work or report being less productive," the report said. "These conditions can impair relationships, disrupt marriages, aggravate the difficulties of parenting, and cause problems in children that may extend the consequences of combat trauma across generations."

"These consequences can have a high economic toll," RAND said. "However, most attempts to measure the costs of these conditions focus only on medical costs to the government. Yet, direct costs of treatment are only a fraction of the total costs related to mental health and cognitive conditions. Far higher are the long-term individual and societal costs stemming from lost productivity, reduced quality of life, homelessness, domestic violence, the strain on families, and suicide. Delivering effective care and restoring veterans to full mental health have the potential to reduce these longer-term costs significantly."

Bush and Congress have the power to stop this problem before it gets worse. It's not too late to extend needed mental health care to our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans; it's not too late to begin properly screening and treating returning servicemen and women who've experienced a traumatic brain injury; and it is not too late to simplify the disability claims process so that wounded veterans do not die waiting for their check. As the Rand study shows, this isn't only in the best interest of veterans, it's in the best interest of our country in the long run.

To start with, the Bush Administration needs to give us some honest information about the true human costs of the Iraq War.


Reprinted courtesy of Foreign Policy in Focus.

May 12, 2008

Aaron Glantz is the author of two upcoming books on Iraq: The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans (UC Press) and Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations (Haymarket).

Thank you for sharing this with all of this. This is something that needs to have attention.

Its a DAMN shame how the govt treat the men who protected this country !!

I used to work at a VA hospital. I have friends that see doctors there.

In the Veteran's Administration hospital here, you see your psychiatrist only every 6 weeks. That is for a meds eval and a tiny bit of therapy. The reason they can't get therapy more than every 6 weeks - they are swamped and understaffed. They are treating vets from Desert Storm still and now are receiving a large population of the Iraq vets.

If they need rehab, it's for 14 days only. And it can only be once a year. Yep, that will help alot.

They are becoming swamped as this administration cuts back funding more and more.

Nothing p*sses me off more than the Governments mistreatment of the Heroes.

We are going to have this huge swath of people, who are broken mentally and physically and they aren't getting the care they earned and deserve.

mental health everywhere, its about every 6 weeks to see the psych., but they should be allowing more time with a therapist!

Tanyaann, I know plenty of people with private insurance that can see their therapist weekly or even twice weekly if needed.

yes that is a therapist, but most ppl fall into community mental health, where they see the dr. every 4 to 6 weeks, and a therapist bi-weekly.

However, the soldiers need intensive therapy, which they are not getting!!!

Mental health care has not been a priority in the United States like in other countries, this needs to change. The prevelence that in one's lifetime that you could have some form of mental illness is very high!

Adding traumatic events like war greatly increases this. Regardless of current standards, the soldiers need acute intensive therapy after returning from war/conflict!!!!

Unfortunatly this has been an issue a long time, even before George W Bush. Our veterans have never gotten the care they needed. Look at Vietnem,Korean Confict, WWI...... I work I the MH field/substance abuse field and I see this everyday. The best solution for this is that our veterans should have top shelf health care paid for by the government when they return home. This is the least our country could do for our heros. It may not save everyone, but it would give them more dignity not to have to deal with the stae/federal funded mental health system that gives you half ass care, no one on one, faulty diagnosises, and lack of follow up. They could get the best private care. Many of these veterans can't get a job that will give them good health care.

Its up to us as Americans to vote for the ppl that will change this. If we all got together on the same idea, we could make a difference!

The problem isn't that they don't give good after care, it's that they don't effectively screen beforehand. Not everyone is mentally built for combat, and that is the underlying problem. I come from a military family-I did 6 years in the Navy, dad did 2 tours Vietnam,my brother is in the army and has been to Iraq. I also have 4 cousins that did tours in Iraq.
If you get someone from Alabama, who has played video games all his life and you hand him a real M-16 and say go kill-the results aren't pretty.

Regardless to the imaginary prepared for battle, no human in their right mind can be comfortable with killing of others humans. If they are comfortable with it then they are not well to begin with. I say this to say that all vets need intensive therapy and help for the rest of their lives after enduring what the government has them do for this country. None should be considered too well to need therapy.

I posted something similar to this a while back and got some vets saying that the soldiers were weak that have problems after battle but that is just not true. If they are human they will have problems with war, it cannot be helped.

Yes, I can see where community mental health would be different than private insurance. Community mental health, if state funded, is also underfunded in my state.

Public mental health care declined after Regan. His administration cut back funds drastically. That forced mental institutions to open their doors and put their patients out in the streets. That's when we started seeing more homeless people. I have even seen this mentioned in college textbooks.

I have a friend who is a Vietnam Vet., he was having emotional problems. Called for an appointment to get screened...they put him on a 3 year waiting list...I think he's still waiting ...

He needs to appeal that and contact a state representative.
That is just wrong.

If he goes thru the VA ER, he will be seen. Then they have no choice.

we have a history of mistreating the vets that goes way back... at least to the civil war days. to blame bush/the iraq war for this mess is.... well..... ridiclous. im sure most of the problems now are with the vietnam vets, they were unusually badly handled. Not only by the VA, but mostly by the liberal/commie/ hippie types who spit on them in airports, called them baby killers, ect ect. Also the press wasent very kind either to them or thier mission.
SOUND FAMILIAR?

You are talking about a minority of people when the vets came home from Vietnam. And the news coverage is faster and better than back then. This is 2008.

I have worked at the VA. I have friends that go there. The mishandling of the vets includes World War II vets, Vietnam vets, Desert Storm vets, etc. And now VA is understaffed and swamped with the incoming of the Iraq vets.

Those are the facts.

Actually, if being exposed to that didn't bother them, that's when I would be worried. If people can go and experience something like Vietnam, the Trenches of WWI and WWII, and the conditions these desert wars and not being able to tell friend from foe more often than not (to name just a few things) and they can then come home and not be effected, I think that they must be very mentally scary people.

the news is faster but its even more slanted than it was during vietnam. Have you heard about the power plants being built there? the hospitals? The schools? the fact that people are able to leave thier houses without worrying about being dragged away and tortured? of course not. WHY IS THAT?
DONT you think that the returning vets are being traumatised when they return from a war they are winning only to be confronted with this pull out now dribble? This business of being for the vets and against the war dont work for a vet either. This is what they hear when you say that:
I like you but i hate everything you have been doing."