Families charge inadequate mental health care fosters suicide among vets of Iraq war

[Barrett808]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON - In the three months after Marine Maj. John Ruocco returned from Iraq feeling numb and depressed, he couldn’t sleep. He had lost weight. He had nightmares. He was distracted and withdrawn from his two young sons.

One night, he promised his wife, Kim, that he would get help. The next morning, he was dead. The 40-year-old Cobra helicopter pilot, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., had hanged himself.

There are others. Army reservist Joshua Omvig. Army Capt. Michael Pelkey. Marines Jonathan Schulze and Jeffrey Lucey. Each came home from tours in Iraq and committed suicide.

Veterans’ groups and families who have lost loved ones say the number of troops struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental health issues is on the increase and not enough help is being provided by the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department.

Read more: http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=1003504

[gratuitous]

1. We can't pay this out of the Defense budget

What would happen to all that lovely, lovely pork if we spent the Defense budget on the troops? Where would poor retired generals go to work if not at Defense contractors, schmoozing their former military colleagues and selling the country a bunch of equipment and armament it doesn't need, or that doesn't work?

We can track down Hurricane Katrina fraudsters for duping the government out of $2,000, but there isn't even one ounce of fat in a $450 billion annual Defense budget. And why should the taxpayer spend a lot of money trying to fix the lives ruined by war? It's a sad necessity that these men had to kill themselves (and maybe take a few loved ones with them), but necessity it must be because the awful alternative is too gruesome to be contemplated.

[EFerrari]

2. And this will get so much worse.

:(

[Malidictus Maximus]

5. The ones that kill themselves

don't use resources that could go to giving big payouts to Buschco operatives. I mean why would the VA actually look after veterns when the same money could be lining the pockets of Blackwater!

[Rambis]

3. Tragic cases all over

It makes me sick to see friends who will never be the same. The are fucked up and they know they are fucked up and they can't get help. If you support the troops Mr. Bush please help them when they get home. They went there right or wrong, they served and now they need help just do it. Money is no object.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

4. They'll never go for adequate mental health care.

They're still stuck on the notion that mental illness is a sign of moral depravity.