"In this war – as in others – I am less interested in honoring the dead than in preventing the dead."- Butler Shaffer
the other day i was just glancing through the book Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukov and somewhere one line really struck me which says, "Since the end of the Vietnam War, three times more veterans have taken their own lives than the number of men and women who were killed during the war."
i was astounded. astounded because of the message it carries. astounded because of the manifestation of so much collective negative KARMA in such fashion.
that line got me curious about suicide rate among soldiers and war veterans. previously i read some other statistics about high rate of suicide (often not reported in public media) among the young soldiers in iraq and afghanistan. so i was looking for more factual evidences and came across some very resourceful reports.
some reports quote figure as high as 120 suicide per week by former gulf war / iraq war veterans across the country*. Another report quoted 1000 suicide per month**. According to Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2006, there are 24.5 million veterans in the US. 1.7 million which are women.
experts have already voiced that it is one of the major crisis of this nation and if there are anything that can be done to respect those who fought for this great nation, this is one of the top issues that need addressing.
with deep respect for all soldiers and veterans, on this memorial day i would like to share the following resources:
VETERANS AND SUICIDE -- AN EPIDEMIC
CBC News Investigation, 5 months state by state survey
[>] Click to watch: Part 1, Part 2
** [>] Cover up! U.S. Veterans SUICIDE rate hit 1000 per Month!
*. 120 War Vets Commit Suicide Each Week (Nov, 2007)
. Veteran Suicides, PTSD, and Election 08': Does America Care?
. Untold Story: Vet Suicides
. Vets with Invisible Wounds of war reach staggering numbers
. U.S. War Veterans and PTSD Awareness
. War Veteran's Suicide Rate "Stunning"
. Study Tracks Suicide Rate in V.A. Care, NY Times
# VA Watchdog dot org
. Vets' growing suicide rate worries officials, SF Gate
. America suffers an epidemic of suicides among traumatised army veterans
. Suicide rate in U.S. Army hits 26-year high, International Herald Tribune
In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners. - Albert CamusCan anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
- Blaise Pascal
In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons. - Croesus
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
- Abraham Lincoln
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