I support our troops by thinking about them daily and praying for them. I pray for their safe return but then remember that even though they make it home, they may still be at war. When I think about the soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan who manage to return home but are forever damaged by the experience I think about Private Joseph Dwyer. You might have seen his picture which was taken by an Army Times photographer in 2003. The Associated Press picked up the photoand it appeared in newspapers across the country. The photo showed Private Dwyer an Army medic, carrying a wounded Iraqi boy, who is half naked and looks terrified. Private Dwyer looks calm and determined and seemed to exemplify all the hope that Americans had at the beginning of the Iraqi invasion.

Joseph Dwyer made it home but he still died way before his time. His mother Maureen told a reporter “He just couldn’t get over the war. Joseph never came home.” Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction, Joseph Dwyer age 31 died alone in his apartment in North Carolina on June 28, 2008. According to the NY Times his wife left him to protect herself and their young daughter from being harmed during Dwyer’s violent delusions.

Dwyer is just one soldier among many who have taken their own lives. A recent Army survey showed that the number of soldier suicides this year could surpass the record rate of last year. As reported by www.americanprogress.org There were 62 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers and Guard and Reserve troops as of the end of last month, with another 31 suspected to be suicides but still under investigation. If those 31 are confirmed, “the number for 2008 could eclipse the 115 last year.”

CBS News recently reported that the Department of Veterans Affairs deliberately withheld information about the suicide risk among veterans. One internal department e-mail about the subject began with, “Shh!” and wondered how to control the alarming statistics “before someone stumbles on it.” After attacking CBS News for supposedly inflating the numbers of veteran suicides, The VA’S head of Mental Health sent an internal e-mail admitting the rate of suicides “is supported by CBS numbers.”

A recent survey found that “about 12% of combat troops in Iraq and 17% of those in Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills to help them cope.

Oh, my. When I hear people like Sarah Palin speak of the war in Iraq as a cause from God, I want to scream NO, it’s not. To my knowledge God never advocated for war against anyone. What God is that?

Of course I worry about the dead and their survivors but I also think of the thousands of poor souls, mentally, physically and emotionally scarred by the wounds of war. Everyone knows how many homeless veterans there are in America. Our soldiers strung out by mental illness and or substance abuse, homeless and alone. The tragedy is fueled by the lack of screening and effective and widely available mental health treatment. Men and women trained to fight and do battle are rarely the sort to raise their hands and admit they are mentally damaged and just plain scared to get the help they so desperately need. Joseph Dwyer himself wasn’t compliant or cooperative; he refused the help of his friends and family who tried to intervene and skipped scheduled therapy sessions, choosing to numb his pain by inhaling aerosol chemicals and abusing alcohol.

The psychic fall-out from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will haunt us for decades; some opt out choosing death over life in living hell. Sometimes I think surviving is tougher than dying.

PTSD, TBI, Depression, Suicide Articles and Links: http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2008/09/outfront-kill-and-tell.html

http://timelines.epluribusmedia.net/timelines/index.php?&mjre=PTSD&table_name=tl_ptsd&function=search&order=date&order_type=DESC http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/06/30/a_blind_eye_on_soldiers_suicides/ http://www.mfso.org/article.php?id=1113
http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2008-09-04-3529406939_x.htm http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/04/17/ http://www.non-combat-death.org/ http://ptsdcombat.blogspot.com/