Veterans Deadly Isolation Gap, their own family

WARNING: I am one angry woman right now!

I wanted to think this was a great story when I read the headline. Then as I read the part about the fact Patt Cottingham goes to the VA with her husband, but didn't know what has been going on all these years with Vietnam veterans, I wanted to punch my computer screen! I can't help it every time I am reminded that the majority of veterans wives, husbands, kids, parents and other partners have absolutely no clue what it is like for them. IT'S OUR JOB TO KNOW!

If you are under the delusion your job is done when they come home and you can stop praying for them, then you are part of the problem. You are part of the problem when they commit suicide and you didn't want to understand them, try to get them help or even notice they needed it. It was your job to know enough to be able to make some kind of informed judgement for their sake. Screw your pride if you think you may be wrong about them needing help because if they do and you do nothing, you'll have to live with that when they pay the price for your lack of attention.

Don't get me wrong here, there are many families stepping up to try to save their lives but even with everything being done right by them, there are still suicides and some cannot be reached. We can't save all of them. I wish we could. But because families do care, do take action, do learn what they can and managed to stay and fight for them, many lives have been saved.

Speaking from experience, I can assure you I would not still be married if I didn't know what PTSD was. It was almost impossible even knowing what was going on inside of him, so it's hard to imagine not knowing anything.

We can be proud as hell of the fact we are the wives of veterans but if we do not know what is going on with all of our veterans, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

I used to post on Military Spouses of America so that new wives would have the knowledge it took me over 20 years to learn. I didn't want them to go through the same hell of not knowing anything and making the same mistakes I made. It began to really get to me when there was so little commenting on the posts I put up. No questions to ask, no support seeking, no sharing. I flipped my lid. I managed to get responses like "We have enough to worry about" while they are deployed and don't want to worry about what happens when they come home.

Sure they have a lot to worry about while they are deployed along with having to be a single parent while married, take care of all the things their spouse did and still manage to everything they already had to do, but the truth is, they would have less to worry about in the long run if they knew what combat was doing to their spouse. For heaven's sake, even for the sake of another veteran they should know and maybe save a life or two.

When we marry into war/combat, it is our job to know everything that ends up coming home with them. We don't need to hear the gory details but we do need to know they are hurting and why they are hurting instead of living like the rest of the population without a clue. They are a fraction of the population of America, which means so are we. It's our job to know so we can support them and help them when they need it. If we don't care enough to learn, then how in the hell can we expect the rest of the country to care either?

Goodbye/Hello 17 "Veterans Deadly Isolation Gap Between Combat And Back Home"
Patt Cottingham
Patt Cottingham has been working as a brand communication strategist for the past ten years.
Posted: May 10, 2010 10:57 AM

Here is a tragic statistic that just blew my mind recently. Of the veterans from the all US wars on average, 18 veterans commit suicide each day. "Of the more than 30,000 suicides in this country each year, fully 20 percent of them are acts by veterans,'' said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki at a VA-sponsored Suicide Prevention Conference Jan.11, 2010 "That means on average 18 veterans commit suicide each day. Five of those veterans are under our care at VA." Now there are those within the VA that dispute this number and others that say that there has been under reporting of suicides by the VA Here is an article link that speaks directly to this http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=2784

I don't think that very many people are aware of this statistic. I know that I wasn't and my husband is a veteran. That is until I saw a recent interview by John Roberts interviewing Tammy Duckworth on CNN. Scrolling along the bottom of the screen was "18 veterans commit suicide each day " Duckworth is an Iraq War veteran and former U.S. Army helicopter pilot whose severe combat wounds cost her both of her legs and damaged her right arm. She is also the Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. Tammy Duckworth went on to say in the interview that the VA and the society as a whole have a long way to go to help returning veterans feel whole and connected again. For her CNN interview visit this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YQJFrngYvY&feature=fvsr


My husband Kenneth is a Vietnam Veteran so I am in and out of the VA Medical Center in East Orange New Jersey quite often. Last week I was sitting in the pharmacy and to the left of me was a young man. I leaned over and asked him "Which war are you returning from?". "He said Afghanistan." I said "Thank you for your service to our country" I went on to say that it must be very hard to re-enter society when you can't really share your experiences with anyone and I assumed that is why so many vets go back for more tours. "He said, that even though he had plastic in his head from a traumatic injury and that his leg was screwed up he still wanted to go back but the army wouldn't let him because his wounds were too serious. I thought to myself, "My god he is saying it is easier to go back to the horrors of war than it is to rejoin American society." I went on to say that recently I had seen a statistic that every day 18 veterans commit suicide. He said, "Yeah, I tried that" He also told me that the divorce rate was very high, especially for newly married veterans. I asked him what could people do to help returning vets. He said, "It always helps to be thanked. And that just having someone care enough to reach out try to connect is also a good thing." I thought to myself a simple "thank you" is the very least that we, as a society should do. For soldiers that have been asked to volunteer their service again and again in wars that exacted such a toll in their lives
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