No one knows how many veterans are behind bars

Veterans Behind Bars
Swords to Plowshares
author: Megan Klein Zottarelli
date: August 15, 2012

NBC Bay Area – More Iraq War veterans are landing in jail but most counties don’t track soldier inmates.

Even the organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America told the Investigative Unit that it doesn’t have current data on veteran populations in prisons and jails because many local and state agencies don’t keep track of that information.

Suicides among soldiers and military veterans have reached epidemic proportions, with 154 suicides for active-duty troops in the first 155 days of 2012, according to the Pentagon.

The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit has uncovered another growing problem among soldiers returning from war — the number of those returning soldiers ending up behind bars. Experts say about one-third of returning military veterans battle mental illness and addiction. Many of them receive little help from the military, leaving them to fight their demons alone.

“I wanted to eat a bullet every single day,” said Marine infantryman and war veteran Anthony Hernandez of San Jose.

Every day since returning home from the Iraq War two years ago Hernandez fought the urge to kill himself. He says it was a battle more challenging than the two tours he spent dodging bullets in some of the hottest battlegrounds of Iraq.

“I had a really tough time,” Hernandez told Investigative Reporter Stephen Stock. “I didn’t feel normal. I was always hyper-vigilant, I was always on guard. I felt threatened by my own community. I couldn’t sleep.”

The Marine said he returned with a host of problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, anxiety, depression, and alcohol addiction. Hernandez said his marriage fell apart and ended in divorce. All because, he said, he couldn’t cope with civilian life.

“It was extremely difficult,” he said. “I isolated a lot. I ruined pretty much every relationship that I had. I didn’t feel comfortable with anybody except my fellow Marines. I had extremely tough time.”

Hernandez said his demons led him to stab his new girlfriend’s father multiple times during an argument and that a combat flashback caused him to snap. He ended up serving 21 months in a local jail on attempted murder charges.

Hernandez is one of a growing number of veterans now finding themselves behind bars. Lawyers, judges and veterans advocates say mental health disorders common among veterans can lead them into the criminal justice system.

“I think people would be surprised to know how many veterans there are in their local jails,” said Duncan MacVicar, a Vietnam War veteran himself and a current veterans rights advocate who works with former service members in the criminal justice system.
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