I said they would be dead today by sundown, and that unless I was much mistaken, no one but their families would know or care. Toward the end of my remarks I ruined everything by bringing up the 22 veterans. Jim was “still a little jumpy” for about 20 years. 45 for pillow and I’m still a little jumpy.” ![]() He said, “Don’t bang on the door to wake me up, I’ve been sleeping in the bush with a. I told him I would take him fishing in the morning. Jim was six days out of his last firefight in the jungles of Vietnam when he turned up on my doorstep in Washington State. I tried to explain that as much times as it takes to turn a civilian into a soldier, it takes that much time and more to turn a soldier back into a civilian. I spoke briefly about my younger brother, Jim, who served in Vietnam during the 1968 Tet Offensive and saw a full year of combat, and then tried to explain what it was like for him to come home. There was music, singing, a few of the last of the Pearl Harbor survivors in attendance, presentations about services for vets, and some paintings of veterans by my artist friend, John Thamm ( ). Last week I gave a talk at a public meeting celebrating Flag Day. (See my note at the bottom to learn more about what I think we should be doing and why.) But every day I still hear things like, “troubled vets need to ask for help.” Give it up folks, those vets most at risk for suicide are never going to ask for help. Mind you, there are lots of good people out there helping vets, training others in how to identify those at risk, and carrying goodwill and the medicine of hope to this new psychological battle front. It’s one thing to die in combat for your country it is quite another thing to take your own life because your country doesn’t back you when the shooting stops. ![]() Given the burden of suffering, why do we putts around?Įvery veteran life lost to suicide is a special affront to me. Our current death toll begs a massive public health funding research approach on par with the Manhattan Project. At once corrosive and contagious, it takes strong medicine to counter it. Thoughts of suicide burrow into the psyche and eat away at hope. But suicide is pernicious, like a virus on the soul. If it were easy, government would have done it by now. I know preventing suicide is hard, not easy. I only wish the bill had included a requirement that all those health care professionals vets will see outside of the VA (which has a strong focus on suicide prevention) will have had some training in suicide risk assessment, treatment and management, because without it, our vets won’t get the best service possible. I know the Pentagon and the VA talk boldly about preventing suicide, and recently Congress passed a bill to provide more VA staff and better medical access for vets to the tune of 50 billion bucks. One of the “not so good things” is that after serving we are elevated risk for suicide. Some of them are good changes, some not so good. Soldiering changes you, and the changes are permanent. Our recent wars may have ended for civilians, but for veterans they never end. I have a dog in this fight and he is pissed. My brothers, uncles and father were or are vets, and I know lots and lots of vets. I say “we” because I am a veteran (US Army Security Agency, 1960-‘63, South Asia). Then we’re just national a rounding error. ![]() We’d send the following warning: “Get low, get out, or get blown up” because here we come!Īmericans soldiers don’t die cheap. No holds barred, full bipartisan support. Planes, ships, tanks, drones, battalions, the works. If 22 soldiers a day were dying in firefights with an enemy somewhere, we would start a war to stop the dying. Our National Alliance for Suicide Prevention has a plan and is working hard, but if you don’t belong, don’t support, don’t share and don’t push this agenda in your community, nothing much will happen. Imagine that a commercial airplane fell out of the sky every five days with 100 Americans on board? What would we do? Wring our hands? I don’t think so. I ask you, what country tolerates this horrific loss of life by those who served and defended it? Unless we tackle this problem, by the end of the decade it will be more than 80,000. Start in January this year, and by New Year 2015 it will 8,000-plus. By all reports 22 American veterans will end their own lives today.Īnd another 22 the day after that, and the day after that.
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