It sucks to be right when they are still dead

I've been called a lot of things in all these years. One of them is "stupid" when I said that we will never know the real numbers connected to military suicides. Time and time again, I point out that when we read numbers, as bad as they may seem, they are only a part of the real numbers of veterans coming home. Back home where it is actually more dangerous for them than it was in combat. Families left in shock, end up blaming themselves.

While this report vindicates what I've been saying all these years, it leaves me with great sadness to have been proven right again. It sucks to be right when they are still dead.

Report: Texas vets dying young at alarming rate
Austin American-Statesman
Saturday, September 29, 2012

The Department of Veterans Affairs, which serves nearly half of recent veterans, does not regularly track individual causes of death, a shortcoming that critics say prevents it from understanding the scope of the problems facing those who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — They survived the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. But they did not survive the homecoming.

A six-month investigation by the Austin American-Statesman of Texas' Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who died after leaving the military found that an alarmingly high percentage died from prescription drug overdoses, toxic drug combinations, suicide and single-car crashes — a largely unseen pattern of early death that federal authorities are failing to adequately track.

The newspaper obtained autopsies, toxicology reports, inquests and accident reports from more than 50 agencies throughout Texas to analyze the causes of death for 266 Texas veterans who served in operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom and were receiving VA benefits when they died.

The newspaper began with 345 fragmentary, nameless records provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Reporters used obituaries, widely scattered public records and interviews with veterans' families and friends to identify the dead, determine causes of death and reveal a phenomenon that has largely been hidden from public view.

The investigation found that:

— More than one in three died from a drug overdose, a fatal combination of drugs, or suicide. Their median age at death was 28.

— Nearly one in five died in a motor vehicle crash.

— Among those with a primary diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, the numbers are even more disturbing: 80 percent died of overdose, suicide or a single vehicle crash. Only two of the 46 Texas veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts with a PTSD diagnosis died of natural causes, according to the analysis.

— The 345 Texas veterans identified by the VA as having died since coming home is equal to nearly two-thirds of the state's casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that only includes veterans who have sought VA benefits, meaning the total number of deaths is likely much larger.