Stories by Penny Coleman
Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her latest book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial Day, 2006. Her Web site is Flashback.
This Veterans Day, let's get past the bunting and ribbons and look at our returning troops' real needs.
Posted on Nov 11, 2009, Source: AlterNet
"Everyone has the potential to be a sex offender. It depends on how they have been conditioned."
Posted on Oct 22, 2009, Source: AlterNet
Far too many soldiers end up behind bars while the rest of us are free to ignore the human evidence of what our military ventures really cost.
Posted on Sep 9, 2009, Source: AlterNet
How the justice system has been manipulated to put astonishing numbers of vets with PTSD and other psychiatric injuries behind bars.
Posted on Aug 12, 2009, Source: AlterNet
Veterans are more likely to get longer sentences than non-veterans for the same crime. How can we treat returning soldiers so badly?
Posted on Aug 5, 2009, Source: AlterNet
Yesterday's attack was the deadliest by a fellow soldier since Bush's wars began. The trauma of combat may be the source.
Posted on May 11, 2009, Source: AlterNet
Along the way, I ate Burger King in Peshawar, developed a debilitating drug habit and caught a 3-year prison sentence.
Posted on Apr 9, 2009, Source: AlterNet
"When it got really bad, I dumped 5 tons of sand into my basement to remind me of Afghanistan."
Posted on Mar 20, 2009, Source: AlterNet
The Army's new recruitment tool lets high-tech video game centers desensitize, condition, train and even enlist America's youth.
Posted on Dec 19, 2008, Source: AlterNet
Obviously, the most immediate and reliable way to prevent soldier suicides is to get troops out of harm's way -- bring them home.
Posted on Nov 11, 2008, Source: AlterNet
This outrage gives "supporting the troops" a whole new meaning.
Posted on Nov 11, 2008, Source: AlterNet
Questions remain about how depleted uranium waste from the first Gulf War was transferred, and whether health risks were posed.
Posted on Sep 17, 2008, Source: AlterNet
Vets are killing themselves in growing numbers, but the government sees suicides as a way to lower the official average processing time of claims.
Posted on Sep 11, 2008, Source: AlterNet
The latest episode of the Department of Veterans Affairs' callous denial of veterans' suffering is a continuation of a long tradition.
Posted on Jul 4, 2008, Source: AlterNet
A rare bit of good news for the anti-war movement goes largely ignored by the media.
Posted on May 31, 2008, Source: AlterNet
An activist travels to the DoD's annual suicide prevention conference, only to find the military brass living in a parallel universe.
Posted on Apr 29, 2008, Source: AlterNet
"How will I survive the wait and the not-knowing, and will I survive at all if my worst fears are realized?"
Posted on Apr 21, 2008, Source: AlterNet
There are at least 60,000 of them, but they're not on the DoD's list of soldiers missing in action.
Posted on Mar 26, 2008, Source: AlterNet
If America listens to what they say, the war would be over tomorrow.
Posted on Mar 15, 2008, Source: AlterNet
Army studies say one in three soldiers will return from Iraq with significant mental health problems, but the system isn't there to help them.
Posted on Mar 14, 2008, Source: AlterNet
The DoD is flirting with the idea of medicating soldiers to desensitize them to combat trauma -- will an army of unfeeling monsters result?
Posted on Jan 10, 2008, Source: AlterNet
A testimony at congressional hearings in response to increasingly ominous reports of soldier and veteran suicides.
Posted on Jan 2, 2008, Source: AlterNet
The military refuses to come clean, insisting the high rates are due to "personal problems," not experience in combat.
Posted on Nov 26, 2007, Source: AlterNet
Americans have been effectively insulated from the human cost of our wars. That's not an accident; it's policy.
Posted on Nov 11, 2007, Source: AlterNet
The military says that there's no connection between the stress of combat and spiraling suicide rates. But the widow of a vet who took his own life knows differently.
Posted on Aug 28, 2007, Source: AlterNet
Modern American military training methods can turn off the switch that controls a human being's inherent aversion to killing.
Posted on Aug 22, 2007, Source: AlterNet
The Department of Defense recently announced that it was hiring additional mental health professionals to deal with the stream of traumatized vets returning from the occupation of Iraq. A widow of an earlier war warns that the effort may be too little and too late.
Posted on Jun 25, 2007, Source: AlterNet
