Navy Adm. Mike Mullen:Problems after combat will last generations

Mullen: Suicides, homelessness trends a concern

By Robert Burns - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Apr 2, 2009 16:28:24 EDT

NEW YORK — Homelessness, family strains and psychological problems among returning veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will persist in the U.S. for generations to come, the top U.S. military officer said Thursday.

“This is not a 10-year problem. It is a 50- or 60- or 70-year problem,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a lunchtime audience at the Hudson Union Society, a group that promotes nonpartisan debate.

Mullen said he was particularly disturbed by the emergence of homelessness as a problem among war veterans.

“I have started to meet with, in veterans hospitals, homeless veterans” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. “And they are every bit as homeless and every bit as tragic as any homeless vet we’ve ever had. We as a country should not allow that to happen.”

At a White House news conference last week, President Barack Obama said that some of the funding increases in his proposed budget for veterans affairs are directed at alleviating the problem of homelessness among veterans, which he said is a bigger problem, proportionally, than is homelessness in the rest of the American population.

Mullen said he also was worried by a rising number of suicides among U.S. military members.

“The trends are all in the wrong direction,” he said, adding that “we’re just at the beginning of understanding” how to deal with the psychological wounds and scars that military members incur during combat service.
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Mullen: Suicides, homelessness trends a concern