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April 23, 2008

126 Veteran Suicides Each Week

It's nearly incomprehensible. 300,000 veterans of the Iraq/Afghanistan war are suffering from severe depression or post traumatic stress disorder and 126 of them give up on life altogether every week. Another 320,000 of our young men and women are suffering from brain injuries they have received in the line of duty. We're not even talking about the millions of dead and displaced Iraqi civilians. This human toll puts the financial toll of the war to shame.

For the sake of perspective, can you imagine any patriotic goal being pursued so readily, so unquestionably, if it entailed the reality that every single resident of Portland, Oregon would receive as a direct result either a brain injury, severe depression, or post traumatic stress disorder, and if 126 Portland residents each week would be traumatized to such a degree that they committed suicide? Can you even wrap your mind around such numbers? Would it not be the moral and patriotic duty of our citizens to give such an action tremendous pause and debate before undertaking it?

Why, then, are those who have questioned the wisdom of this war viewed as unpatriotic, unsupportive of the troops, or even traitorous? Is it not precisely the opposite?

Posted by Becky at April 23, 2008 12:06 PM