SUICIDES WITH IRAQ WAR VETS AT ALL-TIME HIGH

The fallout from the war in Iraq continues to mount as a record level of veteran suicides were recorded for 2007.

Adding to the horrendous upsurge in veteran suicides is the alarming information that the Veterans Administration is woefully under-equipped and under-staffed to deal with all the mental health problems veterans are facing when they return from active duty in Iraq.

The Washington Post in its Thursday edition is reporting on an in-depth study that shows 121 Iraq war veterans committed suicide in 2007.

The Bush administration continues their swagger about how well the "surge" is going in Iraq, but the administration has failed miserably in dealing with the after effects of a war that has gone on now longer than World War II and is sending young men and women home without adequate mental health treatment for the alarming rate of suicide attempts that continue to soar.

This blogger was a Cpl. (E-4) in the Combat Engineers in the United States Army during the Korean War and personally saw several of my Platoon make an attempt at suicide. One young soldier drank a can of bore cleaner used to clean rifles and another tried to throw himself in front of an oncoming truck.

Nobody has any idea what war does to young men and women unless you have seen it firsthand.
The troops in Iraq are on their third and fourth rotations and the stress is enormous.
The Bush administration should hang their collective heads in shame for not taking better care of our wounded warriors returning from Iraq.

Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, a blog dedicate and devoted to telling the truth about what is happening to our soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Vet's battle with depression reveals effects of long tours, lack of resources

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22923548/

Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who was waiting for the Army to decide whether to court-martial her for endangering another soldier and turning a gun on herself last year in Iraq, attempted to kill herself Monday evening. In so doing, the 25-year-old Army reservist joined a record number of soldiers who have committed or tried to commit suicide after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"I'm very disappointed with the Army," Whiteside wrote in a note before swallowing dozens of antidepressants and other pills. "Hopefully this will help other soldiers." She was taken to the emergency room early Tuesday. Whiteside, who is now in stable physical condition, learned yesterday that the charges against her had been dismissed.

Whiteside's personal tragedy is part of an alarming phenomenon in the Army's ranks: Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.

Click on link above to read the full story of veteran suicides.