Returning veterans must not be neglected

By SEAN KELLY

Thanks to a previous part-time job developing crime scene photos, I’m well aware that suicide is not a pretty picture.

Even though I had no connection with the people in the frames, there is something about someone taking their own life that is inherently upsetting, unsettling and sad. I couldn’t help but wonder (and the nature of my job meant I would never know) what had driven these people to that point and what, if anything, could have been done to help them.

So you can imagine how upset, unsettled and sad I was when I read the news earlier this week: Every day, five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves, according to an article published on CNN.com. Before the U.S. entered Iraq, that number was less than one soldier a day. 2,100 soldiers now try to commit suicide in 2007, the article said, and that number doesn’t appear to have leveled off – the trend is an upward one, so we can expect more tries in 2008.

“Suicide attempts are rising and have risen over the last five years,” said Col. Elspeth Cameron-Ritchie, an Army psychiatrist, in the CNN article.

The stats for soldiers are still lower than the stats for civilians – so the average Joe is still more likely to commit suicide than someone who commutes to Iraq and Afghanistan for a living. But the climbing numbers still say that U.S. soldiers aren’t doing as well as they were before, and that is something that needs to be addressed.

Part of the problem is the culture of warfare. No one is supposed to be stronger, tougher, more stable than a soldier – and when something goes wrong, that same soldier may then be reluctant to admit they need help. We have to make sure that our fighting men and women realize there’s nothing wrong with needing a helping hand – one we’re more than willing to give.

The other problem is simple math: the more traumatic an event, the more likely a person is to develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD causes a slew of difficulties in a person’s day-to-day life, like depression and trouble interacting with friends and family, laying the groundwork for the type of distress that can lead to a suicide attempt. With our combat troops cycling back into combat zones for long tours of duty without relief, the odds of them encountering such a traumatic event go up all the time.

But the problems go further than that. Sometimes, the soldiers who are willing to ask for help don’t get it. Last week, as representatives took the floor of the senate to debate the problem, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) claimed that some soldiers only receive an 800 number in order to call for help.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) introduced legislation geared toward improving the military’s suicide prevention programs. We’ll see how far that goes; efforts to revamp the Veterans Affairs system haven’t gotten very far in the past, and last year’s reports about Walter Reed Army Medical Center indicate that returning veterans don’t often receive the best care.

Certainly, we all have our own opinions about military policy, the War in Iraq and all the other ways U.S. soldiers have been deployed in the past five years. However, I think we can all agree that men and women who give everything for our country deserve a happier life to come home to when their tour is finished. I think that people who manage to avoid being killed by enemy combatants and roadside bombs should be safe from personal darkness, as well.

The conversations on the political stage have turned lately to focus on the economic downturn, stimulus packages, legislative earmarks and a lot of other problems that seem to have more of a direct impact on our day-to-day lives. But for the families of the 89 soldiers who successfully killed themselves in 2007, there is no more direct impact than that. And it’s a stark reminder that there’s a lot the country still needs to fix before we’re done.