Ted Westhusing, was a champion basketball player at Jenks High School in Tulsa Oklahoma. A driven kid with a strong work ethic, he would show up at the gym at 7AM to throw 100 practice shots before school. He was driven academically too, becoming a National Merritt Scholarship finalist. His career through West Point and straight into overseas service was sterling, and by 2000 he had enrolled in Emory University to earn his doctorate in Philosophy. His dissertation was on honor and the ethics of war, with the opening containing the following passage: "Born to be a warrior, I desire these answers not just for philosophical reasons, but for self-knowledge." Would that all military commanders took such an interest in the study of ethics and morality and what our conduct in times of war says about our development as human beings. Would that any educational system in this country taught ethics, decision making, or even political science that's not part of an advanced degree anymore.

Ted Westhusing, the soldier, philosopher and ethicist, was given a guaranteed lifetime teaching position and West Point by the time he had finished with his service and his education. he felt like he could do more for his country by trying to shape the minds coming out of the academy that were the ones that would be military commanders. He had settled into that life with his wife and kids, when in 2004 he volunteered for active duty in Iraq, feeling like the experience would help his teaching. He had missed combat in his active duty and it seemed like an important piece for someone who not only philosophized about war, but who was also preparing the military's future leaders.



But more than that, he was sure that the Iraq mission was a just one; he supported the cause and he bought the information that was put in front of him. Considering that vials of powder were being tossed around hearings by the highest level of military commanders how could he not? This was a man who was so steeped in the patriotism of idealistic military fervor that he barely could fit in regular society. His whole being was dedicated to this path, and he was proud to serve his country.

Once in Iraq, he found himself straddling the fence between a questioning philosopher and an unquestioning soldier. Westhusing had thought he was freeing a country in bondage, keeping America safe from a horrible threat, and spreading democracy to a grateful people. But the reality of what was happening in this out of control war was too much for him. His mission was to oversee one of the most important tasks left from the war; retraining the Iraqi military by overseeing the private contractors that had been put in charge of it.

As the assignment went on he found that everywhere he looked he was seeing corrupt contractors doing shoddy work, abusing people, and stealing from the government. These contractors were being paid to do many of the jobs that would normally be done by a regulated military, and they bore out the worst fears of those who don’t believe in outsourcing such vital work. He responded to the corruption that he saw by reporting the problems up the line, but the response from his commanding officers was disappointing. He had, for much of his career, idolized military commanders, and in that assignment he found himself with some of the military's most famous faces, doing the most important job, but he was terribly disappointed and alarmed to realize that they were greedy and corrupt themselves.

The wall of silence about this was impenetrable and the reality of the situation turned his entire belief system upside down, making him question everything that was going on, and his role in it. Having envisioned the top military commanders to be the most honorable that America has to offer, he was crushed to find out that ascending to power in this military could be more due to cronyism than expertise and that these men who he had aspired to be like were greedy and corrupt themselves. Upon reporting to his commanding officers, he realized that not only did the problems stretch to the level above him, but that they were systemic.
To these commanders the only real problem was the fact that they had a deeply honorable soldier in their command that was likely to rock the cash cow. Westhusing was so bereft at the realization of his part in this breakdown in the military's code of conduct, and the atrocities carried out in America's name, that he became despondent and finally in June, 2005, he shot himself. It was called a suicide, though there have been some questions raised about it.

He’s not the first Iraq suicide, though he was, at the time of his death, the highest ranking one. He was an oddity; a thinking soldier in a war that requires blind obedience, and unwavering dedication. The black and white world of Bush's military doesn't allow much for the grays that come into the picture when one is, at heart, a philosopher...and even in the face of seeing the reality of war, how can anyone come to terms with the revelation of corruption on this scale? More crushing was the realization that the leaders that he idolized, and the honor that he held as being the very foundation of his entire world as a military officer, were all a lie, and stories told to cadets at West Point that didn’t bear out in reality. The leaders in this war didn't care, and many were, as he outlined in his 4 page suicide letter, that was addressed to General's Fil and Petraeus, his direct commanders, only out for their own selfish enrichment.

Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. [Redacted name]—You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff—no msn [mission] support and you don’t care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied—no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more. Trust is essential—I don’t know who trust anymore. [sic] Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it.

COL Ted Westhusing

Life needs trust. Trust is no more for me here in Iraq.

What troubled Westhusing was not just the death and destruction all around him, the obvious looting of the country, and the human rights abuses, but the seeming lack of attention to the problem by his two of commanding officers, General Joseph Fil, and General David Petraeus. Yes, that David Petraeus. So focused was he on the destructive role of these two, that his suicide note was written to them. Westhusing's widow said that her husband's death should serve to bring out the truth of the corruption that her husband saw. Author and journalist, Robert Bryce was recently able to get documentation of interviews with Westhusing's wife and many other bits of correspondence and Investigation documents through the freedom of information act. They leave more questions open than they answer, especially in light of the media's blackout on information about Petraeus' part in this...even during a week that he is center stage at hearings being conducted on the war.

The book Blood Money, by T. Christian Miller, relates in depth, the deep convictions of Westhusing, and his drive towards a sort of noble honor and how that ended with his death. His favorite saying was by Socrates from Plato's Phaedo: "Those philosophizing rightly are practicing to die." It’s more than a little disconcerting to find that he had acted detached and despondent for days or weeks before he committed suicide, often standing around looking at his gun closely and lost in thought, not paying attention to what was happening. In a war where there are a record number of cases of suicide and PTSD, is there no awareness training of the trouble signs going on? He exhibited all of the signs of depression and despondency, and it’s a mystery why no one stepped up and tried to help him. But this is the culture of the military, and this is probably what worked out better for his commanding officers, who were no doubt looking at a loose canon who was raining on their good deal out there in the desert. Was there more to Westhusing's death? There is quite a lot of speculation out there that something was amiss at the death scene, and about who found him, (a contractor who reportedly tampered with the scene,) and that things don’t add up exactly.

General Petraeus is appearing before congress this week to try to defend his "surge" and to stop any further troop withdrawals. He is also making the case for an additional 100 billion dollars.
The surge is not working, no matter how it’s spun. If we keep combat troops in Iraq there could arguably be a reduction of violence, depending on many factors, but if its actually "working," as in helping Iraq to be more self sufficient and to end our participation in the problems there?...well, that depends on your definition of "working."

The fact that Petraeus has a long history of being wrong in his assessments of Iraq, and the fact that when directly questioned about current violence, he tends to defer blame to Iran, aside, at some point you have to question how much Petraeus' risen star and earning potential is tied to this war and its continuation. To say that this administration is in any way even a little translucent is laughable. Never has there been such an almost psychotic grab for all encompassing power with no body overseeing the actions of a few in power. Never has there been an attitude that the executive is above the law and the need to somehow document that for some sort of long range plan.

At some point the level of spending and loss of funds is so incredible that we must be compelled look at management, even if it’s unseemly in a time of war. At some point the American people have to demand an accounting. You would think that America had never run a war before. Surely it must be embarrassing when the top military officer has to get up in front of congress and try to explain some very small incremental improvement at such a huge cost. These improvements can also be easily explained away by so many factors, such as payments to a certain faction to stand down, ethnic cleansing having actually worked, and just the fact that more troops might put off the inevitable civil war that will happen now or in 20 years once the US security forces are pulled out. None of that speaks to a lasting improvement or even a partial repair of what we’ve done there.

A lot of this is common sense, and the fact that all Americans want so badly to feel like we've won, or that this was a just cause and not just some construct of Imperialism and the oil wars...much less, plans that happened in some conference rooms above the rule of law and our governmental checks and balances...well, we may be just caught in a nightmare here and waking up is not an option for those in power. We must realize that at some point we're doing more harm than good, and that may involve admitting that we are not necessarily on the side of right. But that's the rub here, and that's where we get back to Westhusing; any action in life comes with the possibility of a later realization that what you were positive about at one point could have been wrong.

Real strength of character involves being able to admit to wrong, even if that realization is terrible. In some societies the idea of having made mistakes brings dishonor on entire families. In our society the military culture is such that honor is everything; or it was. This administration has pulled the heart and guts out of any such code of honor in favor of allegiance to their plan for domination and their version of "right." But that too depends on your definition of "right."

The fact that much of what they espouse has to do with their Christian religion, and that a new culture of religious intolerance and pressure has grown up in the military academies of America, is no secret. When the love of country and honor...ideas, decision making, and weighing things... is replaced with allegiance to an ideology represented by a very powerful minority, ruling with fear rather than strengthening our collective will by reminding us what our American values are, we are no longer the America of the founders. Westhusing subscribed wholeheartedly to the credo of Honor or Death. He embraced the ideals of this country to the point that they were woven into his being. The realization that so many representatives of our country, of us, were not only corrupt, but committing atrocities, and the realization that the commanders had no intention of doing the honorable thing and stopping these abuses, was too much for him.

Was Westhusing murdered? Well, conspiracy theorists out there have some information and I suppose that one could make a case for further investigation. But one thing is for sure; He was a man of honor, he was despondent over corruption involving his direct commanders and said as much in a suicide letter addressed to them, and regardless of who pulled the trigger, he got the information out. I will leave the energy for trying to convict a lesser employee of a subcontractor to others who like to dig these things out. No direct connection will ever be found to Petraeus. It just doesn't work that way.



The implication is there, but the bigger implication is about the man whose finger will never be physically placed on the trigger; David Petraeus. This is the man who would immediately stop the very slow withdrawals that Bush began last year. This is the man who would continue to pour good money after bad into a situation that cannot even be basically stabilized after so many years. Today, All Spin Zone covers the hearings and asks that if Petraeus were a CEO or any top management in any business, wouldn't he be fired for this poor performance? What does someone have to do to get fired in this administration? At some point, aren't we going to question the implications and accusations floating around this man? At some point doesn't he lose all credibility as someone implicated in so many failed plans? Where is the honor in this leadership and where is the honor in this war?

RIP Ted Westhusing, and everyone else who has given their lives in this farce...RIP.

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: corruption, General Petraeus, Iran, Iraq War, mental illness, PTSD

Despite the best efforts of the department of defense, stories of a surge in veteran and active duty, in country, soldier suicides have plagued this war since we settled in for our long, long stay. Many have been presented as anecdotal, even though they really represented an alarming trend in what amounts to lack of treatment and understanding of what the problems of soldiers are going to be as this war winds on. Most Americans cant seem to focus for long on much these days, and the inability to view even a people magazine article as an indicator of a trend, leaves most regular people unprepared for the real sacrifices that are going to be necessary and the ground work being laid. Surely the care of thousands of depressed and PTSD citizens is not part of the grand budgeting for this war.

In this new world, where we are told to go shopping rather than make any vague sort of sacrifice, where we are not allowed to see even photographs of caskets being offloaded from military transports, where most communities are ill-prepared for their damaged brothers and sisters return to normal life, something is gonna have to give.

Now comes word that CBS has done that rare thing which we see so seldom these days from our media conglomerates; they actually did some research and dug up some information ...and then even reported a real story. So odd was this phenomenon that the method is part of the story, in that they first took the numbers from the states, then took the military numbers...then...then...Its all very fascinating and I hope that it gets huge ratings so that other M$M reporters might look up from their daily briefing from the White House, get off their asses, and look critically at some independent statistics.

According to Alternet CBS has uncovered some hidden statistics that the counters would prefer that we not know in this time of "the surge is working," (if you don't count the "crime" shootings in the front of the head, or was that the sectarian shootings in the back of the head?) Our brave soldiers are committing suicide at an alarming rate. We are talking about 120 dead per week, which is an average of 17 every day!

Anyone that has ever dealt with mental illness of any sort; PTSD, depression, or suicidal ideology, can tell you that an attempted or completed suicide comes from a place of complete and utter pain, such despair and desolation, a break from reality, and that it is not a situation usually where someone hasn't at least tried to get some relief in other ways. Blame it on the anti-malaria drug, the war, or any number of factors, the numbers are going up and regardless of the cause, its a problem that belongs to us all.

The fact that the veterans administration is not prepared for the physical injuries that this war has wrought is well documented, but the real rub here is going to be the numbers of psychologically damaged soldiers returning on top of those that are here already, that are not being treated properly, if they can be treated at all, and who are going to overwhelm a system that is unprepared for this. With the VA backlog already in the millions, how is this problem going to play out in our cities and towns? There is no money for this...there are not enough trained professionals at the ready, there is a lack of mental health care on the ground in Iraq, when some of this could be caught early, and the line snakes around the corner and back again.

The hot career path of the future may well be in mental health, folks. This is not the stuff of take a Prozac and feel better. This is not social anxiety like on the commercials. Its debilitating and disabling, and the cure is not simple. The numbers are bad enough right now, but the stories of the government propping up and shipping out anyone who isn't actively cutting their wrists on their way to the airport, are troubling, to say the least.

Meanwhile, many of those who are able to get enough help to at least document their problems, are dismissed as having "personal problems" rather than any reaction to the war, violence, long deployments and redeployment's, and a different type of percussive head injury that is probably not fully understood yet. I could also imagine that anyone in the position of having volunteered as a reservist and then realized that they were going into war, untrained for the most part, unequipped, and that the tours have been extended and are going to be repeated, might feel quite a bit of helplessness and despair. Add to that the ongoing grind of an ill conceived war that has had our forces clearing one area and then moving on, only to have to come back to the same area again...in other words, there are not enough forces there to hold any part of what they are able to clear.The frustration of risking your life every day for a policing operation that never ends, is some sort of nightmare; you roll the boulder up the hill and it rolls back down...forever...At some point it must be nice to be someone who can embrace the talking points and follow orders blindly, but it must be pretty damned hard for anyone over there right now not to see whats happening on the ground.

We can only extrapolate from CBS's numbers that many, many active duty soldiers are feeling really badly...and I mean that in a dangerous sense. How many depressed and suicidal soldiers are out there as important parts of squadrons on patrol? How many armed veterans are walking around at home with unaddressed despair?
Our unpreparedness and obvious inability to treat the epidemic of PTSD and depression in the military is not only inhuman treatment of society's bravest members, but it is actual torture. What are we going to do when the military, lacking resources to deal with this problem, is flooded with returnees? What of the outsourced army who definitely have the same sorts of problems? What are we gonna do?


c/p RIPCoco

Labels: Iraq War, mental illness, PTSD

Last week Glenn Greenwald took a page from Digby's book and wrote about Chris Matthews' manlove for Fred Thompson in a larger post about the celebration of (faux) masculinity on the right, a milieu in which toughness is all about talk and not at all about action.

Republicans have long tried to exploit masculinity images and depict Democrats and liberals as effeminate and therefore weak. That is not new. But what is new is how explicit and upfront and unabashed this all is now. And what is most striking about it is that -- literally in almost every case -- the most vocal crusaders for Hard-Core Traditional Masculinity, the Virtues of Machismo, are the ones who so plainly lack those qualities on every level.

There are few things more disorienting than listening to Rush Limbaugh declare himself the icon of machismo and masculinity and mock others as "wimps." And if you look at those who have this obsession -- the Chris Matthews and Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldbergs and Victor Davis Hansons -- what one finds in almost every case is that those who want to convert our political process and especially our national policies into a means of proving one's "traditional masculine virtues" -- the physically courageous warriors unbound by effete conventions -- themselves could not be further removed from those attributes, and have lives which are entirely devoid of such "virtues."

Meanwhile, the REAL tough guys, the guys who have put their asses out there on the line, are coming back like this:

U.S. troops returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer "daunting and growing" psychological problems -- with nearly 40 percent of soldiers, a third of Marines and half of the National Guard members reporting symptoms -- but the military's cadre of mental-health workers is "woefully inadequate" to meet their needs, a Pentagon task force reported yesterday.

The congressionally mandated task force called for urgent and sweeping changes to a peacetime military mental health system strained by today's wars, finding that hundreds of thousands of the more than 1 million U.S. troops who have served at least one war-zone tour in Iraq or Afghanistan are showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety or other potentially disabling mental disorders.

"Not since Vietnam have we seen this level of combat," said Vice Adm. Donald Arthur, co-chairman of the Department of Defense Mental Health Task Force. "With this increase in . . . psychological need, we now find that we have not enough providers in our system," he said at a Pentagon news conference yesterday unveiling the report. "Clearly, we have a deficit in our availability of mental-health providers."

The ongoing "surge" of more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will exacerbate this gap, as will the rapid growth in the number of soldiers, Marines and other troops -- now about half a million -- who have served more than one combat tour, heightening the risk of mental illnesses, the report said.

As in the aftermath of Vietnam, the costs of untreated mental illness will rise dramatically over time, the report warned. "Our nation learned this lesson, at a tragic cost," it said. "The time for action is now."

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is required by law to develop a plan of action within six months on the 95 recommendations included in the 64-page report.

The task force, composed of seven military and seven civilian professionals with expertise in military mental health, was formed in May 2006. It based its report on visits to 38 U.S. military care facilities in the United States, Europe and Asia; interviews with care providers, military personnel and their families and commanders; as well as expert testimony and research.

Good luck getting a plan in action in place -- and funded -- by this bunch. This country is led by a guy who couldn't even lay off the blow long enough to show up for his cushy stateside National Guard assignment and a guy with a bum ticker who "had other priorities" when it was his time to serve, and who thinks doing the quail equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel makes him a tough guy. These guys are cheerled by a wizened little Jewish man whose idea of being in combat is to pump his fist at the screen and shout "Yeah!" and "All right!" while watching a fictional portrayal of American troops in Bosnia and a cadre of talk show heads not one of whom has ever served.

In the faux machismo world of these chickenshit politicians and the pundits who worship them, PTSD is a sign of weakness -- and flies in the face of the myth of the American soldier. Military training may be designed to turn human beings into killing machines, but when even those killing machines have what remains of their souls after the military tries to pry them out of them ripped from their bodies, we owe it to them to try to help -- and to speak out against those who would continue to worship the kind of dick-waving bullshit that brought them to this state.

Labels: Af, Iraq, mental illness, PTSD, wingnuttia

Perhaps more than any other war, the Iraq War is steeped in the American mythos of the stoic warrior; the manly, macho man with a gun, doing his patriotic duty and then returning home to a life of quiet stoicism. It's a myth perpetrated by such well-meaning folks as Tom Brokaw in his "Greatest Generation" books, Clint Eastwood in his 2006 WWII diptych Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, and over fifty years of war movies. It's an image nurtured and fostered by a president parading around in macho military drag and a chickenhawk vice president whose obsession with death permeates every speech.

The Vietnam war should have taught us what happens when a country sends its young off to a war without point, a war without end, a war based on lies. Nearly a third of Vietnam veterans have soffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder at some point in their lives.

With today's increased knowledge about and awareness of mental illness, one would think that more troubled returning soldiers would have access to and seek treatment. But the old myths of the Stoic Warrior do not die easily. As early as 2004, as many as 1 in 8 soldiers returning from Iraq were showing evidence of PTSD. A study published in the March 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine reported that nearly a third of veterans returning from Afghanistan were diagnosed with some form of mental illness.

We've seen how the Bush Administration treats the physical injuries of the soldiers it has sent into these wars. The care of wounded veterans has been held by this bunch to be less important than the desire of Dick Cheney to stuff his pockets with more and more texpayer cash by awarding expensive contracts to the company which still compensates him.

But there is a very real toll that these troubled returning veterans are suffering, one which flies in the face of the Myth of the Stoic Warrior, and therefore one which the Administration wants to just hide.

Bob Herbert writes about one of them today:

The war in Iraq began four years ago today. Fans at sporting events around the U.S. greeted the war and its early “shock and awe” bombing campaign with chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

Jeffrey Lucey, who turned 22 the day before the war began, had a different perspective. He had no illusions about the glory or glamour of warfare. His unit had been activated and he was part of the first wave of troops to head into the combat zone.

A diary entry noted the explosion of a Scud missile near his unit: “The noise was just short of blowing out your eardrums. Everyone’s heart truly skipped a beat. ... Nerves are on edge.”

By the time he came home, Jeffrey Lucey was a mess. He had gruesome stories to tell. They could not all be verified, but there was no doubt that this once-healthy young man had been shattered by his experiences.

He had nightmares. He drank furiously. He withdrew from his friends. He wrecked his parents’ car. He began to hallucinate.

In a moment of deep despair on the Christmas Eve after his return from Iraq, Jeffrey hurled his dogtags at his sister Debra and cried out, “Don’t you know your brother’s a murderer?”

Jeffrey exhibited all the signs of deep depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Wars do that to people. They rip apart the mind and the soul in the same way that bullets and bombs mutilate the body. The war in Iraq is inflicting a much greater emotional toll on U.S. troops than most Americans realize.

The Luceys tried desperately to get help for Jeffrey, but neither the military nor the Veterans Administration is equipped to cope with the war’s mounting emotional and psychological casualties.

On the evening of June 22, 2004, Kevin Lucey came home and called out to Jeffrey. There was no answer. He noticed that the door leading to the basement was open and that the light in the basement was on. He did not see the two notes that Jeffrey had left on the first floor for his parents:

“It’s 4:35 p.m. and I am near completing my death.”

“Dad, please don’t look. Mom, just call the police — Love, Jeff.”

The first thing Mr. Lucey saw as he walked down to the basement was that Jeff had set up an arrangement of photos. There was a picture of his platoon, and photos of his sisters, Debra and Kelly, his parents, the family dog and himself.

“Then I could see, through the corner of my eye, Jeff,” said Mr. Lucey. “And he was, I thought, standing there. Then I noticed the hose around his neck.”

Here's another one, this one from January 2006:

By his own admission Douglas Barber, a former army reservist, was struggling. For two years since returning from the chaos and violence of Iraq, the 35-year-old had battled with his memories and his demons, the things he had seen and the fear he had experienced. Recently, it seemed he had turned a corner, securing medical help and counselling.

But last week, at his home in south-eastern Alabama, the National Guardsman e-mailed some friends and then changed the message on his answering machine. His new message told callers: "If you're looking for Doug, I'm checking out of this world. I'll see you on the other side." Mr Barber dialled the police, stepped on to the porch with his shotgun and - after a brief stand-off with officers - shot himself in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

And another:

It took two years of hell to convince him, but finally Jonathan Schulze was ready.

On the morning of Jan. 11, Jonathan, an Iraq war veteran with two Purple Hearts, neatly packed his US Marine Corps duffel bag with his sharply creased clothes, a framed photo of his new baby girl, and a leather-bound Bible and headed out from the family farm for a 75-mile drive to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Cloud, Minn.

[snip]

And so, with his father and stepmother at his side, he confessed to an intake counselor that he was suicidal. He wanted to be admitted to a psychiatric ward.

But, instead, he was told that the clinician who prescreened cases like his was unavailable. Go home and wait for a phone call tomorrow, the counselor said, as Marianne Schulze, his stepmother, describes it.

When a clinical social worker called the next day, Jonathan, 25, told again of his suicidal thoughts and other symptoms. And then, with his stepmother listening in, he learned that he was 26th on the waiting list for one of the 12 beds in the center's ward for post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers.

Four days later, on Jan. 16, he wrapped a household extension cord around his neck, tied it to a beam in the basement, and hanged himself.

And another:

It took several months of pushing, but finally, Chris Dana was ready.

The 23-year-old veteran of the Iraq war, who served with the 163rd Infantry Battalion, Montana National Guard, agreed to see a counselor for post-combat stress.


Members of his family, concerned for months about his change in behavior, believed they were starting to get through to him. Their son and brother promised to seek the help they all knew he so desperately needed.

Then Dana canceled the appointment. He began screening his calls. He stopped showing up at drill with the National Guard. He quit his job at Target, cleaned his car and the trailer he shared with a friend. And then, on March 4, he shut himself into his bedroom, put a blanket over his head, and shot himself.

Joshua Omvig was another one.

Paul Rieckhoff has more on the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act (S. 479 and HR. 327), to mandate addressing the problem of mental health treatment in the military.

I realize that facing the very real toll that this war is taking on even those soldiers who manage to come home in one piece means bidding farewell to the Hollywood images of the strong, invincible good-guy warrior that have certainly and obviously fed George W. Bush's lust to fight a battle using other people's blood. But as we should have remembered from Vietnam, the people our leaders sent to fight war are flesh and blood human beings who deserve better than to have their souls ripped out of them by a military and a government that cares not a whit for them, and then be sent home to try to make their way without any support. If that means we have to finally put a stake in the heart of the warrior myth, so be it.

Labels: Iraq, mental illness, PTSD