Suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan war vets may exceed combat deaths

[marmar]

from ThinkProgress:



Suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan war vets may exceed combat deaths.»

Thomas Insel — director of the National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S. government’s top psychiatric researcher — said today that “the number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care.” Bloomberg reports:

Insel echoed a Rand Corporation study published last month that found about 20 percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, and only half of them receive treatment. About 1.6 million U.S. troops have fought in the two wars since October 2001, the report said. About 4,560 soldiers had died in the conflicts as of today, the Defense Department reported on its Web site.

Based on those figures and established suicide rates for similar patients who commonly develop substance abuse and other complications of post-traumatic stress disorder, “it’s quite possible that the suicides and psychiatric mortality of this war could trump the combat deaths,” Insel said.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/05/suicides-among-iraq-and-afghanistan-war-vets-may-exceed-combat-deaths/

[jimshoes]

1. And to think this is all so a couple of

fuckheads could get stinking rich. Sometimes I wonder if there is punishment enough for crimes such as these. Forget about hell, that's not good enough. I want a punishment for the here and now, not after they're dead and buried.