Missoula Veterans Day ceremony puts focus on 'unseen wounds' of war

Missoula Veterans Day ceremony puts focus on 'unseen wounds' of war
Missoulian
By Kim Briggeman
November 11, 2013

It’s sobering that more American veterans of Vietnam have ended their own lives than were lost in the long war itself.

“Even more frightening,” Dan Gallagher told a crowd of several hundred gathered on the Missoula County Courthouse lawn Monday, “is our newest generation of veterans, those of Iraq and Afghanistan, are committing suicide at a rate that’s on par with the Vietnam veterans statistics.”

Gallagher, a Vietnam vet, was speaking at the annual American Legion Post 101 Veterans Day ceremony that he helped start 32 Novembers ago. He said the statistics demonstrate how much work is left to do to help returning U.S. warriors.

“It’s extremely easy to recognize those severely wounded physically by combat ... but recognizing the existence of wounds that show no scars is vastly more difficult,” he said.

Those unseen wounds touch many lives, said retiring U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, who also spoke at Missoula’s first courthouse veterans ceremony in 1982. Baucus was joined in Missoula by Matt Kuntz of Helena, an Army infantry officer whose stepbrother served in Iraq with the Montana National Guard.

“Like too many of our soldiers, Matt’s stepbrother suffered from the unseen wounds of war. When the pain of coping with PTSD became too much to bear, Matt’s stepbrother tragically took his own life,” Baucus said.
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Spc. Chris Dana