PTSD: Will these be days that live in infamy as well?

We try to count the lives lost to suicide because of PTSD. 10,000 a year make a serious attempt at it but over 6,000 more succeed at it and that's every year. We will never know for sure about the veterans that die in car crashes slamming their cars into trees or driving them off cliffs, any more than we will know how many ended up with dangerous driving because of PTSD and a flashback that got out of control. It seems this may have been one more of the cases when a combat veteran comes back and snaps.

I wonder if these days of inaction by some and not enough actions by many will have these days remembered in infamy because this attack against our troops, against our veterans, was something we were not prepared for and it took too long to get it right?

Casualties of war
San Diego Union Tribune - San Diego,CA,USA
By Steve Liewer
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

December 7, 2008

SAN DIEGO – Stu Hedley knows something about loss.

The Navy veteran lived through 13 sea battles in World War II, experiencing the deaths of dozens of his friends, and saw combat in the Korean War.

During the attack on Pearl Harbor 67 years ago today, Hedley was one of two men who survived the direct hit of a Japanese bomb on Turret No. 3 of the battleship West Virginia. Fourteen other sailors died in the turret, among 106 killed aboard the ship as it burned and sank at its mooring.

No loss has struck harder, though, than the violent death last year of Hedley's grandson, Ryan Ricketts of Boulevard. Ricketts, a 21-year-old Marine corporal from Camp Pendleton, died in a high-speed motorcycle accident several months after returning from a combat tour in Iraq.

“Ryan was very dear to me because he had the moxie to go out and do things,” said Hedley, 87, of Clairemont. “When we lost him, it hurt. It was like a bubble that burst.”

Ricketts had argued with his girlfriend before the Aug. 18, 2007, crash on Interstate 805 at State Route 52. He was speeding at more than 100 mph when he slammed into the back of a car and died instantly.


Family members said Ricketts had been unusually reserved since he returned from Iraq, though he told them he badly wanted to deploy again. They said he was even more prone to taking risks than he was as a youth, when he tried rock climbing and bungee jumping. They believe he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Even though he died on a motorcycle and not on the battlefield, I do feel he was a casualty of war,” said his mother, Nancy Ricketts, 47, a former San Diegan who now lives in Riverside.
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PEARL HARBOR ATTACK
Surprise assault by the Japanese against the United States because of U.S. support for China, which the Japanese had first attacked in 1931.

Six Japanese aircraft carriers crossed the Pacific to within 300 miles of Hawaii. They launched 350 fighters, bombers and torpedo planes, as well as five mini-submarines.

The bombardment on several military installations across Oahu started at 7:55 a.m. Dec. 7, 1941, and lasted two hours.

Of the 90 U.S. ships at Pearl Harbor, 21 were damaged. Five battleships – the Arizona, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Utah and California – were sunk. The Japanese destroyed 185 aircraft and damaged 159.

The U.S. toll was 2,403 dead and 1,178 wounded.

Japanese forces lost 29 aircraft and 55 crew members.

SOURCE: Naval Historical Center