IRAQ WAR MARINE VETERAN COMMITS SUICIDE

On Eve of Court Hearing, Another Tragic VA Failure: Iraq War Marine Veteran Steven Vickerman Commits Suicide

The Veterans Health Administration estimated in a May 2007 report that 1,000 suicides occurred per year among veterans who received care within the VHA and as many as 5,000 per year among all veterans. At the same time, the number of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder is surging, according to studies and veterans advocacy groups.

Sadly, the Veterans Health Administration is not equipped to handle the number of cases of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans returning with severe depression and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrom (PTSD).

The Bush admistration has done nothing to aleviate the problem and there are literally thousand of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans walking around who are desperately in need of mental health treatment.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/9461

Mar 01, 2008

Hannan Adely

Journal News (New York's Lower Hudson Valley)

For Palisades, New York Native, Iraq War Trauma Ends in Suicide

March 1, 2008, Palisades, New York - After two tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps Reserve, Steven Vickerman tried to resume a normal life at home with his wife, but he could not shake a feeling of despair.

His parents, Richard and Carole Vickerman of Palisades, went to visit him at a veterans hospital after he suffered a mental breakdown; they were in disbelief. The funny and adventurous baby brother had become sullen, withdrawn and full of anxiety. Vickerman, who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, killed himself Feb. 19.

"We're still in shock. Our son was a proud Marine. He served his country honorably, and we don't know what happened to him," said Carole Vickerman, who buried her son Tuesday at Rockland Cemetery in Sparkill.

As soldiers return from service in Iraq and Afghanistan, many are unprepared to deal with the anxiety and depression stemming from their experiences in war. Some seek help from the Veterans Health Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, but become frustrated by paperwork and long waits for counseling and care. Others feel too proud or embarrassed to seek help at all, or believe they can tough it out with time. Despair drives many to take their own lives, according to reports and experts.

The Veterans Health Administration estimated in a May 2007 report that 1,000 suicides occurred per year among veterans who received care within the VHA and as many as 5,000 per year among all veterans. At the same time, the number of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder is surging, according to studies and veterans advocacy groups.

Click on link above to read the rest of this tragic story.

U.S. INJURY AND MEDICAL EVACUATIONS FROM IRAQ: DofD STATS ARE SHOCKING

The United States Department of Defense has a way of counting the injuries to United States military personnel from the Iraq war that brings into question just how honest is the Department of Defense with the American people, and more importantly with the families of those injured in Iraq.

The following is a list from the Department of Defense of "non mortal casualties" by each branch of the service and the injuries the U.S. soldier, U.S. Marine, U.S. Navy or U.S. Air Force person sustained.

The totals are shocking and are a far cry from what the mainstream media is reporting.

Bill Corcoran, Chicago, corkcol@aol.com, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, a blog that dares to tell the truth about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Each branch of the service is listed and then below are the various type of injuries as they pertain to each branch of the service.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Non Mortal Casualties
Army
Navy
Marines
Air Force
Total
Wounded - No Medical Air Transport Required
13,045 Army
434 Navy
6,370 Marines
260 Air Force
20,109 Total
Wounded - Medical Air Transport Required
6,525 Army
164 Navy
1,987 Marines
82 Air Force
8,761 Total
NON-HOSTILE-RELATED MEDICAL AIR TRANSPORTS
25,634 Army
995 Navy
2,538 Marines
1,370 Air Force
30,537 Total
Non-Hostile Injuries - Medical Air Transport Required
6,386 Army
283 Navy
1,051 Marines
335 Air Force
8,055 Total
Diseases/Other Medical - Medical Air Transport Required
19,248 Army
712 Navy
1,487 Marines
1,035 Air Force
22,482 Total
MEDICAL AIR TRANSPORTS (HOSTILE AND NON-HOSTILE)
31,831 Army
1,159 Navy
4,527 Marines
1,453 Air Force
39,298 Total
U.S. Deaths: Self-Inflicted As reported by the DoD as of 1/10/2008
Self Inflicted
Army
Navy
Marines
Air Force
Total
Died of Self-Inflicted wounds
116 Army
4 Navy
15 Marines
0 Air Force
135 Total
Missing or Captured:
Nationality
Name
Date
US
Staff Sergeant Keith M. Maupin
16-Apr-2004
US
Ahmed Qusai al-Taei: Status - missing-captured
23-Oct-2006
US
Spc. Alex R. Jimenez: Status - missing-captured
12-May-2007
US
Pvt. Byron W. Fouty: Status - missing-captured
12-May-2007

IRAQ WAR HITS U.S. ECONOMY. DoD JUGGLES IRAQ INJURY FIGURES

The Iraq war has contributed to the U.S. economic slowdown and is impeding an economic recovery, Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says.

The nearly 5-year-old war, once billed as virtually paying for itself through increased Iraqi oil exports, has cost the U.S. Treasury $845 billion directly.

To illustrate how the money could be spent elsewhere, Bilmes cited the annual U.S. budget for autism research -- $108 million -- which is spent every four hours in Iraq. A trillion dollars could have hired 15 million additional public school teachers for a year or provided 43 million students with four-year scholarships to public universities, the book says.

The authors said they were surprised by the hidden costs their research found, citing, for example, what they called the underreporting of casualty figures by the Pentagon.

The official Pentagon figure of nearly 30,000 wounded in action fails to account for an addition 40,000 service members who have required medical attention for non-combat injuries or illness, Bilmes said. She based her conclusion on official Defense Department data from a restricted Web site.

By Daniel Trotta

http://tinyurl.com/33fcpd

Meanwhile, the U.S. government is severely underestimating the cost of the war, Stiglitz and co-author Linda Bilmes write in their book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War" (W.W. Norton), due to be published on Monday.

The nearly 5-year-old war, once billed as virtually paying for itself through increased Iraqi oil exports, has cost the U.S. Treasury $845 billion directly.

"It used to be thought that wars are good for the economy. No economist really believes that anymore," Stiglitz said in an interview.

Stiglitz and Bilmes argue the true costs are at least $3 trillion under what they call an ultraconservative estimate, and could surpass the cost of World War Two, which they put at $5 trillion after adjusting for inflation.

The direct costs exclude interest on the debt raised to fund the war, health care costs for veterans coming home, and replacing the destroyed hardware and degraded operational capacity caused by the war.

In addition, there are costs not accounted for in the budget such as rising oil prices and social and macroeconomic costs, which the book details.

To illustrate how the money could be spent elsewhere, Bilmes cited the annual U.S. budget for autism research -- $108 million -- which is spent every four hours in Iraq. A trillion dollars could have hired 15 million additional public school teachers for a year or provided 43 million students with four-year scholarships to public universities, the book says.

Stiglitz and Bilmes say they were excessively conservative in calculating the $3 trillion figure, overcompensating for their bias in having opposed the war.

'FLOODING THE ECONOMY'

Asked if the war has contributed to the U.S. slowdown, Stiglitz said, "Very much so."
"To offset that depressing effect, the Fed has flooded the economy with liquidity and the regulators looked the other way when very imprudent lending was going up," Stiglitz said. "We were living on borrowed money and borrowed time and eventually a day of reckoning had to come, and it has now come."

The war has also altered how the United States has reacted to its current economic troubles, he said.

"When America's financial institutions had a problem, they had to turn to the sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East for recapitalization, for the bailout," he said.

"The reason was obvious. The war had led to high oil prices. The war had meant that America had to borrow more money. There weren't sources of liquid funds in the United States. The sources of the liquid funds were in the Middle East," he said.

Bilmes, a former assistant secretary and chief financial officer of the U.S. Customs Department, said the war also limited options for the $168 billion stimulus package signed into law by President George W. Bush on February 13.

"We really had very little wiggle room in order to pass this because of the fact that we're spending $16 billion a month on Iraq and Afghanistan," Bilmes said. "Actually the country could have used a larger fiscal stimulus but there is (no) cash to accommodate it."

The authors said they were surprised by the hidden costs their research found, citing, for example, what they called the underreporting of casualty figures by the Pentagon.
The official Pentagon figure of nearly 30,000 wounded in action fails to account for an addition 40,000 service members who have required medical attention for non-combat injuries or illness, Bilmes said. She based her conclusion on official Defense Department data from a restricted Web site.

3,000 INDIANA NATIONAL GUARDSMEN GOING TO IRAQ

The United States Army is stretched to the breaking point because of long deployments to Iraq, and now the ARMY TIMES is reporting 3,000 members of the Indiana National Guard are going to be shipped to Iraq to shore up the broken conditions of a war that has gone on longer than World War II.

The mainstream media and FOX NEWS keep saying recruitment goals are being met by the United States Army, but the truth is they are not and that is why the Army is going to have to depend more and more on National Guard units from states like Indiana and other states around the country.

FOX NEWS is far and away the worst when it comes to reporting the true facts of the state of United States Army in Iraq.

The so-called news organization, FOX NEWS, continually deceives their audiences into believing everything is going well in Iraq when the exact opposite are the true facts.

3,000 Indiana Guardsmen set for Iraq deployment

The Associated PressPosted : Saturday Mar 1, 2008 17:27:36 EST

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/ap_indianaguarddeploy_030108/

FORT STEWART, Ga. — Many family members and friends shed tears Saturday during the departure ceremony for more than 3,000 Indiana National Guard soldiers about to leave for Iraq.

Maj. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of First Army Division East, told members of the Indiana Guard’s 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team they have received realistic and challenging training since arriving at Fort Stewart at the beginning of January.

“The soldiers standing on this field exemplify all that is good about our Army and our nation,” Hood said. “They are the patriots who stepped forward who answered the call to service.”
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels spoke of his visit on Friday to Warriors Walk — which has 386 Eastern Redbud trees, each one representing a fallen soldier from the 3rd Infantry Division based at Fort Stewart — and about the pictures taken in Iraq he found wrapped in a plastic shield under one of the trees.

They were left there by a soldier who took them from his fighting position with a note written on the back of one of them that read, “I rather fight them here.”

“Because he did, because you will, there has not been another attack on this country,” Daniels said. “We are safer than we expected to be. Thank God for those who made that so.”
Fort Stewart has been a training ground for National Guard units facing deployment to Iraq. The brigade will begin shipping out from Fort Stewart to Iraq in the coming weeks, Indiana Guard Capt. Lisa Kopczynski said. She declined to say exactly when and where the unit would deploy for security reasons.

In Iraq, the Indiana soldiers will be involved in various tasks, including force protection, convoy protection and rear base operations, Kopczynski said.

The ceremony concluded with the brigade combat team marching off the field in front of dignitaries and about 5,000 family members.

Christine Davis of Evansville, Ind., who was there to see her husband Karl off, stood on the side of the parade field watching the soldiers pass with her mother-in-law, Lottie Davis.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m glad he is going because this is what he wants to do, but its going to be hard on me,” Christine Davis said, wiping her eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Christine Davis said she was now going to have to deal with the daily things her husband took care of such as paying bills and getting household items repaired when needed. Her biggest regret, though, is how little time they have left before his deployment.

“I’m only going to have four days with Karl,” she said. “That doesn’t make up for the four months I haven’t been with him and the months he is going to be away.”

U.S. WAS BRAGGING TOO SOON. IRAQI DEATHS RISE 36 PERCENT IN FEBRUARY

The Bush administration and their mouthpiece, FOX NEWS, have been saying "the surge" has brought much of the violence in Iraq under control.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

A recent report indicates deaths of Iraqi civilians was up 36 percent during February.

Iraq casualties rise again after Qaeda bombs

Sat Mar 1, 2008 3:26pm EST

By Paul Tait

http://tinyurl.com/2yfotw

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Violent civilian deaths in Iraq rose 36 percent in February from the previous month after a series of large-scale bombings blamed on al Qaeda, Iraqi government figures showed on Saturday.

A total of 633 civilians died violently in February, compared with 466 in January, according to figures released by Iraq's interior, defense and health ministries. It was the first increase after six consecutive months of falling casualty tolls.

Despite its sharp rise, the February 2008 figure was still dramatically lower than the 1,645 civilians who died violently in the same month a year ago. A total of 701 civilians were wounded, compared with 2,700 a year ago.

Declining civilian casualties have been hailed by Iraqi and U.S. military officials as proof that new counter-insurgency tactics adopted last year have been working and Iraq is safer.

February's casualty figures spiked after female bombers killed 99 people at two pet markets in Baghdad on February 2 and a suicide bomber killed 63 people returning from a Shi'ite religious ritual south of Baghdad on February 24.