He bolted into the kitchen, where his wife, Rhonda, was cooking supper. "Don't let them in!" he yelled. "Don't let them in!"
Charles knew there would be only one reason why the soldiers would be coming to his house: to inform him that his only son, 40-year-old Master Sgt. Jeffrey McKinney, had died during his second combat tour of duty in Iraq. The only question was how.
That's the opening to David Tarrant's "Suicide of Bedford couple's son illuminates growing problem among soldiers" (Dallas Morning News) and July 11, 2007, on his second tour of Iraq, Master Sgt Jeffrey McKinney had taken his own life. Tarrant notes the 14 deaths that have been ruled suicide so far this year at Fort Hood. Lindsay Wise and Yang Wang (Houston Chronicle) report:
A Houston Chronicle analysis of the state's vital statistics found that suicides among Texans younger than 35 who had served in the military jumped from 47 in 2006 to 66 in 2009 -- an increase of 40 percent.
Last year, suicides made up nearly 25 percent of the deaths of Texans younger than 35 who served in the military. That percentage is more than twice the rate of suicide in the comparable civilian population. Eleven percent of the deaths of civilians younger than 35 in Texas last year were suicides.
National attention has been focused on the record suicide rate in the Army, which lost 163 soldiers to suicide in 2009. But the military only recently began reporting suicides in the Reserve and National Guard, and there are no official statistics on suicides among veterans who are retired or were discharged from the armed forces.
Meanwhile Sue Lamoureux tells Keith Rogers (Las Vegas Review-Journal -- link has text and video), "There is not an answer for that except he went to war and he came home broken. The country he fought for has failed him, and most certainly, Nye County, Nevada is trying to crucify him." She's speaking of her husband Iraq War veteran Sgt Joseph Patrick Lamoureux is in jail for a gun battle with Nye County sheriff's deputies. She states he needs medical help not jail (where a leg wound from the shooting -- including the bullet in his leg -- was not removed for 18 months and was allowed to become infected) and she notes that he was on at least 14 prescription drugs -- prescribed by the VA -- the night of the shooting.
AP notes that a brigade from Fort Riley has deployed to Iraq for a year-long tour while Erica Proffer (KRGV) reports that 170 Brownsville troops (370th Transporation Company) are deploying to Iraq for one year. The Iraq War is not over. And we're ignoring a regional paper and its two part feature on the costs of war because in its opening it asserts the Iraq War's over. It's not over. There are 50,000 US troops still in Iraq. How shameful.
Shameful is also some members of Congress (as well as members of Barack's so-called Fiscal Responsibility Commission) attempting to cut and gut veterans benefits. The Pensacola News Journal's editorial board offers, "We hope any president or possible candidate for president in the near future read this headline last week: 'Study: Veterans' health costs could top $900B(illion).' No, that's not the cost of health care for all the aging veterans in the VA system. That's the expected cost for the veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Add it directly to the current, accumulated direct cost of these wars, now somewhere around $1 trillion. (And all of it borrowed to avoid the tax increases otherwise needed to cover it.)" The editorial notes the House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing last week. If you missed that hearing, you can drop back to Thursday's "Iraq snapshot" and Friday's "Iraq snapshot." And, on that hearing, we'll note this press release from the Committee (note, I've embedded the links instead of displaying the HTML code, other than that, I've made no changes to the release):
Washington, D.C. - On Thursday, September 30, 2010, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Bob Filner (D-CA) conducted a hearing on the true cost of war. Economists, veteran advocates, retired military leaders, and veterans and their families discussed the real life consequences of war, not just in financial terms but in the practical reality of day to day living. The hearing specifically focused on the rising estimates of the cost of veterans’ care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), how veterans and their families have coped with post-combat life, and how the government could prepare to keep the promises made to America’s fighting troops and veterans.
“Every vote that Congress has taken for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has failed to take into account the actual cost of these wars by ignoring what will be required to meet the needs of veterans,” said Chairman Filner. “The Congress that sends them into harm’s way assumes no responsibility for the long-term consequences of their deployment. Each war authorization and appropriation kicks the proverbial can down the road. Whether or not the needs of soldiers injured or wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan will be met is totally dependent on the budget politics of a future Congress which includes two sets of rules – one for going to war and one for providing for our veterans who fight in that war.”
Chairman Filner cited veterans of past wars that left their weapons on the battlefield only to return home and fight for care. Many have died, but several million of these veterans are still with us, dying from their service-connected afflictions and uncompensated for their sacrifice. Filner explained the current difficulty in doing the right thing and compensating these veterans: “The fight to meet the needs of soldiers suffering from the effects of Agent Orange, for example, requires that offsets for the necessary funding are found in other parts of the budget. It is known around here as ‘pay-go.’ The Department of Defense has no such requirement. In other words, our current system of appropriating funds in Congress is designed to make it much easier to vote to send our soldiers into harm’s way than it is to care for these soldiers when they come home. This is morally wrong.”
Economists and authors of the 2008 book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz were initially believed to have overestimated the cost of operations in Iraq. Two years later, however, nearly 25% more veterans are seeking VA health care services and applying for service-connected benefits than first estimated, putting a revised estimated cost of war between $4 and $6 trillion. Bilmes and Stilitz assert that the consequences of “essentially ignoring the cost of caring for veterans is threefold. First, it understates the true cost of going to war. We know that every war will have a long ‘tail’ of costs, including the significant cost of providing for those who fight in the war, and their families and survivors. However, in the appropriations process, we do not make any provision for this inevitable cost. This disguises and hides the true costs. Second, from an economic perspective, it is poor financial management. We should not be financing a 40-year long pension and benefit obligation from annual budget revenues. Third, it inevitably leads to the possibility that veterans’ needs will not be funded adequately.”
When a veteran seeks treatment and compensation for wounds, it can be a time-intensive and complicated process, often resulting in denial of care and benefits. When a veteran is severely wounded, this burden typically falls on a family member. One mother who has advocated for care for her injured son said, “Families should not have to sacrifice and bear the burden of advocacy, and compromise their own financial stability and wellness to ensure that their soldiers’ receive the appropriate and necessary services from the government.” Although many veterans receive complete services from the VA, many families depend on community non-profit organizations to fund specialized surgeries not covered by VA, to provide therapy dogs, to adapt homes to accommodate wounded veterans, and to provide costly specialized equipment.
Participants discussed a number of possible recommendations to better prepare the country to care for the long-term costs of war. Colonel James D. McDonough, Jr., (Ret.) testified that from his perspective, “our citizenry is indeed supportive of sending young American’s into battle – we have their consent to do so, but little to nothing is understood about their actual needs upon returning from battle and reintegration back in the very community from which they departed…. To reach the 64 percent of returning veterans not using their services the VA must include community-based providers as part of a more coherent delivery network; private providers, supported by the VA and working alongside public providers, to deliver barrier-free and high quality veterans services, benefits and programs.” Other ideas included a Veterans Trust Fund, setting aside a percentage of war spending bills for veterans’ health care, selling government war bonds, and setting a war surtax.
Filner concluded: “Veterans committing suicide. Homeless veterans on the streets. Women veterans suffering from military sexual trauma. Stressed marriages and increasing divorce rates. National Guardsmen and women struggling to find work as a result of the threat of deployment. Alarming rates of post-combat stress. Parents quitting jobs and losing health care to care for their wounded children. Children struggling in school during the deployments of their parents. Lost productivity of fallen service members and the accompanying loss and grief. These are all the costs of war. It is past time for Congress to recognize that standing by our men and women in uniform and meeting their needs is a fundamental cost of war. Congress should, therefore, account for these needs and take responsibility for meeting them at the time that we send these young people into combat. It is time to reflect on the need to reform a process that systematically denies the connection between fighting a war and meeting the needs of those we send into harm’s way.”
WITNESS LIST
Panel 1
Linda J. Bilmes, MBA, Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Ph.D., Nobel Laureate, Professor, Columbia University
Joseph A. Violante, National Legislative Director, Disabled American Veterans
Panel 2
Major General John Batiste, USA (Ret.)
Major General William L. Nash, USA (Ret.), Independent Consultant
Colonel James McDonough, USA (Ret.)
Panel 3
Paul Sullivan, Executive Director, Veterans for Common Sense
Lorrie Knight-Major, Mother of a Veteran, Silver Spring, Maryland
Corey Gibson, Veteran, Terre Haute, Indiana
###
Prepared testimony and a link to the webcast of the hearing are available on the internet at this link:
Bilmes and Stiglitz testimony:
Bonnie reminds that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "He's Got That Vote Sewed Up" went up last night. And Friday, September 24th FBI raids took place on at least seven homes of peace activists -- the FBI admits to raiding seven homes -- and the FBI raided the offices of Anti-War Committee. Just as that news was breaking, the National Lawyers Guild issued a new report, Heidi Boghosian's [PDF format warning] "The Policing of Political Speech: Constraints on Mass Dissent in the US." Along with being a National Lawyer Guild member (she's actually Executive Director of the national office), Heidi co-hosts WBAI's Law and Disorder Radio (10:00 a.m. EST Mondays -- also plays on other stations around the country throughout the week) with fellow attorneys Michael Ratner and Michael Smith and today the program explores the raids with guest Jim Fennerty.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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