A family's tragedy, death after combat

A Family's Tragedy
WJFW-TV
Submitted: 06/07/2011

EAGLE RIVER - An alarming statistic shows an estimated 18 service members kill themselves everyday due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

One Northwoods family recently experienced this loss, and shares their story.

This 28 year old began serving his country at age 18.

His sister, Amanda, says he wouldn't have it any other way. "That's what he wanted to do, that's the one thing he was so proud of, to be able to say that he did it."

But after returning home from Iraq, Amanda says Mark wasn't the same, and suffered from post traumatic stress. "He was out in the war. He did two tours in Iraq. Every loud noise you hear, you automatically think, 'Is that a bomb going off? Is that someone coming after us?'"
A Family's Tragedy

There are too many people in this country believing it is unnecessary to pay attention to any of what is going on, over there or back home.

A Washington Post/ABC poll released on Monday found that support for the war in Afghanistan had actually risen in the past month. The poll, conducted last week, found that 43 percent of Americans say the war is worth fighting, compared with 31 percent in March.

43 percent now think it was worth fighting since Osama had been killed. Pretty sad considering that after the attacks, Bush's approval rating shot up and almost everyone supported going to Afghanistan for revenge. As you can see here
Bush approval rating

The country forgot about all of them too fast and for those still paying even the slightest attention, they wanted the troops out of Afghanistan almost as much as they wanted them out of Iraq.

Considering most people don't want to even know how many have been killed in either war, the likelihood of them considering stories like this are important enough to pay attention to is just about zilch.

When they survive combat but cannot survive coming back home, the entire nation should be appalled enough to demand action for their sake and stop being so fixated on what the broadcast media wants them to focus on.