The Iraqi War has become suicidal
By
Saul Landau
I
gave a dollar to a shabbily dressed young man holding a “help me”
sign on a Market Street in San Francisco. Most Saturday shoppers,
many of them foreign tourists taking advantage of the cheap dollar,
ignored him and the scores of homeless people hoping to score some
spare change. Dave thanked me.
I
asked him why he wasn’t working.
“My
back hurts,” he explained. The pain began “outside of Baghdad.”
He pointed to the base of his spine. “A mortar shell exploded. A
couple pieces of metal lodged somewhere here.” He pointed to the
base of his spine. “One of my buddies got hit in the eye. He’s
worse off than me.” Dave said he was about to turn 26 and had lived
on the streets for almost two years.
By
Saul Landau Read Spanish Version
I
gave a dollar to a shabbily dressed young man holding a “help me”
sign on a Market Street in San Francisco. Most Saturday shoppers,
many of them foreign tourists taking advantage of the cheap dollar,
ignored him and the scores of homeless people hoping to score some
spare change. Dave thanked me.
I
asked him why he wasn’t working.
“My
back hurts,” he explained. The pain began “outside of Baghdad.”
He pointed to the base of his spine. “A mortar shell exploded. A
couple pieces of metal lodged somewhere here.” He pointed to the
base of his spine. “One of my buddies got hit in the eye. He’s
worse off than me.” Dave said he was about to turn 26 and had lived
on the streets for almost two years.
Heroin?
I guessed.
He
smiled.
“Some
had it worse. Arms, legs, brains.”
I
asked where he slept.
“Parks,
under freeways, sometimes in homeless shelters if I have nothing that
can get stolen,” he laughed.
I
shook his hand and wished him luck. “Hey,” he called. “I
haven’t killed myself yet like some of my buddies did.”
Dave
was referring to the average of 18 veterans who kill themselves every
day in the United States. “In California alone in 2006, 666
veterans committed suicide,” reported John Koopman. (SF
Chronicle,
May 12, 2008)
Dave
might have been referring to Tim Chapman, also of San Francisco. Like
Dave, he could not readapt to civilian life after his experience with
war in the Middle East. Tim got on drugs. He joined a gang. His wife
left him and he began to focus on ending his life, he told Koopman.
Throughout
the country, communities cope with tens of thousands of U.S. troops
returned from Afghanistan and Iraq with blighted bodies and brains.
As long as Bush’s wars continue — no candidate has pledged to
withdraw all the troops — the country faces a growing collection of
veterans, many of whom cannot function in family or work settings.
They suffer from war wounds — physical and mental — that require
expensive treatment.
Even
though the overall number of veterans has begun to decline as World
War II and Korea participants expire, “the government expects to be
spending $59 billion a year to compensate injured warriors in 25
years, up from today’s $29 billion.” And reporter Jennifer C. Kerr
cites the Veterans Affairs Department, which “concedes the bill
could be much higher.” (Associated Press, May 11, 2008)
Those
who don’t show injuries or don’t come in for or respond to
treatment have become the highest risks. In 2005, CBS News began
investigating suicides in the U.S. military. "120 people each
week who had served in the military committed suicide. That’s an
average twice that of non-veterans," concluded a report from
CBS’ Armen Keteyian (Nov. 13, 2007)
CBS
asked Dr. Steve Rathbun, acting head of the Epidemiology and
Biostatistics Department at the University of Georgia, for a detailed
analysis of suicide statistics obtained from government authorities
for 2004 and 2005. From the figures, Rathbun found that veterans
“were more than twice as likely to commit suicide as non-vets.”
Iraq and Afghan War veterans, aged 20 through 24, had the highest
suicide rate among all veterans — between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.
The general population has 8.9 per 100,000.
In
early April, a group of lawyers representing veterans’ rights sued
in a San Francisco federal court. The suit claimed the VA had
deliberately concealed the risk of suicide among veterans.
Attorney
Gordon Erspamer put it generously: “Unfortunately the VA is in
denial." Erspramer was referring to emails written by Dr. Ira
Katz, the VA’s head of Mental Health. Katz had insisted that the
suicide risk for returning Afghanistan and Iraq veterans was in
normal range. "There is no epidemic in suicide in VA," Katz
told CBS’ Keteyian last November. But in one 2007 email Katz wrote:
"Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000
suicide attempts per month [12,000 a year] among veterans we see in
our medical facilities." That contradicted the number the VA
gave CBS News (790 attempted suicides in 2007).
The
e-mail, "Not for the CBS News Interview Request," began
with "Shh!" Katz finished his email with: "Is this
something we should (carefully) address … before someone stumbles
on it?"
Rep.
Bob Filner (D-Ca), chair of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs,
called this “a crime against our nation, our nation’s veterans."
(CBS News)
Katz
later regretted his statement. “It was an error and I apologize [to
the House Committee] for that." (CBS news interactive, April 23,
2008) Katz confessed he knew some 12,000 veterans a year had
attempted suicide while being treated by the VA. That figure doesn’t
cover those not under VA treatment. Katz wondered if "this is
something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of
release before someone stumbles on it?"
Bush
Administration officials are replete with sick jokes. Remember FEMA’s
Michael Brown after Hurricane Katrina? The right wing bureaucrats
saved their cruelest joke for those deployed and returning from the
Middle East, almost 1.7 million men and women. Veterans suffering
from wounds or traumas often observe their conditions worsening,
leading to greater disabilities. The new vets know more than the ones
from previous wars about getting their rightful benefits; thus,
rising costs.
Because
battlefield and emergency medical care have improved dramatically
since World War II and Korea, and even since Vietnam, wounds that
would have previously killed have become treatable. The number of
vets collecting after Afghanistan and Iraq duty has grow to almost
200,000.
When
Bush’s routine “special” request to continue the war appears
before Congress, however, most Members — and certainly not the
President — don’t focus on the disabled veterans. Since 2001, when
Bush initiated his two wars, the number of partially destroyed vets
has leaped 25 percent. 2.9 million Daves — or far worse cases — now
populate the country. They join older vets from older wars as part of
those who fit Franz Fanon’s description: the wretched of the earth.
Rick
used booze, a habit he acquired in Vietnam where he served two tours
of duty doing “search and rescue.” Within
a decade after his return to the United States he became convinced
that he saw malevolent shadows. These illusive entities manufactured
parasites and directed them to burrow under his skin and have now
followed him to the gas station near his Oakland street lodgings.
He
has spent two decades battling that fear — with the help of booze
and other substances, of course. “The war was the most exciting
time in my life,” he concluded as he scratched the spots where the
imaginary entities had crawled under his skin. “You wonder why they
would do it all over again.”
Tens
of millions of Americans ask why Bush and his supposedly conservative
advisors would again
dispatch
young
men and women to fight a war that had no just cause and threatens to
drag on endlessly. Millions ask: Why can’t the United States
withdraw? Why doesn’t Congress just cut the funds? They shake their
heads at the answers.
Civil
war might break out. We can’t desert those poor Iraqis. Al Qaeda
could claim victory. Our reputation, our prestige, our national
conscience, blah blah blah….
Steve
Smithson, a deputy director at the American Legion, told AP reporter
Jennifer Kerr that suicide "is a cost of war."
Almost
24 millions veterans — disabled or not– watch their numbers dwindle
as World War II and Korean War vets die. The VA projects that by 2033
only 15 million will remain, but it will cost more to deal with them.
Compensation for disabled veterans, agency economic predict, will
increase from today’s $29 billion to $33 billion — at least. The
disabilities mount, the injuries become more acute.
A
RAND corporation study claimed some 300,000 ex soldiers suffered from
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. More than 320,000 had probably
experienced traumatic brain injuries in combat.
The
nature of Bush’s wars means “in Iraq and Afghanistan all service
members, not just combat infantry, are exposed to roadside bombs and
civilian deaths. That distinction subjects a much wider swath of
military personnel to the stresses of war.” (Julian Barnes, LA
Times
April 18, 2008)
ENOUGH
ALREADY!
Saul
Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow and director of WE
DON’T PLAY GOLF HERE
(available on DVD through roundworldprodutions@gmail.com).
