"Hidden Epidemic" of Suicides in Iraq Revealed

This post, written by GottaLaff, originally appeared on Cliff Schecter's Brave New Films Blog

Mental illness. Suicide. Just more side effects of the disaster in Iraq that Bush and Cheney own. It's theirs. And guess what, guys? It followed us home. So much for fighting them over there so we don't have to... blah blah blah.

Sometimes the enemy is the demon that torments you, the demon that doesn't show up for 6 months to a year.

[A] CBS News analysis reveals [some of the 25 million veterans] lose that battle, and take their own lives, at a clip described by various experts as "stunning" and "alarming," according to Chief Investigative Correspondent Armen Keteyian. One called it a "hidden epidemic."

He says no one had ever counted just how many suicides there are nationwide among those who had served in the military -- until now.

The five-month CBS News probe, based upon a detailed analysis of data obtained from death records from 2004 and 2005, found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 as non-vets.

A recent Veteran Affairs Department estimate says some 5,000 ex-servicemen and women will commit suicide this year, largely as a result of mental health issues, and Keteyian says, "Our numbers are much higher than that, overall."

Oh but who cares. They did what the administration wanted them to do, what none of the insensitive, fear-mongering, shock-and-awed chickenhawks would have the guts to do themselves.

After the weary, mentally destroyed, broken soldiers come back, it's pretty much, "Staff Sergeant who?"

"The war didn't end foe him when he came home," says [Staff Sgt. Justin Reyes's] mother, Jean Willis. "I think he was being tormented and tortured by his experiences."