Veterans ended at the bottom of the despair valley when truth was ignored

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 22, 2014

Tampa Bay Times John Romano, Times Columnist wrote Why aren't we doing everything possible to help anguished veterans?

There were 475 suicides among active service members last year. That was triple the number of soldiers lost in combat. Also, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, active military suicides in 2012 were almost twice as high as the general population rate.

The numbers are even more frightening for retired military members. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 22 veterans kill themselves daily. In other words, a veteran commits suicide nearly every hour of every day.

In the face of those numbers, it seems obvious that we need to do all we can to provide help and services for our military community.

Here are a few more facts. Most states say the number of veterans committing suicide are double the general population however, veterans are only 7% of the US population. The VA says the largest group committing suicide are 50 and over.

The article was yet one more reporter jumping on the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Bill being blocked by Senator Tom Coburn. While I don't agree with him on most things, and only partially on the reason he blocked the bill, it should not be approved. Most of the ones congress has done have failed to produce positive results. The troops and our veterans deserved better.

The old line about "If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything" came to reality because well meaning reporters decided they wouldn't stand for much at all leading the public to jump off the same cliff while veterans ended at the bottom of the despair valley.

CBS 60 Minutes had an interview with Coburn about leaving the senate and talked about the way American feel about members. "Americans like witches, the IRS and even hemorrhoids better than Congress" with only 7% approval rating. Part of the reason veterans don't approve of what Congress has been doing is due to what they live with everyday, year after year.

While most reporters tell them what Congress, the VA and the DOD are doing, the reality

Coburn was also interviewed about holding the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Bill. 13 Veterans groups came out against Coburn and so did most reporters but the reason doesn't seem clear to the rest of us.

In our lives, we've seen decades of other bills, countless hearings covered by CSPAN in their boring entirety and then we waited to see what each one produced until our minds got numb. We wanted to know when someone, somewhere, would stop playing games and start supporting the truth. How can anyone say they support the troops/veterans without supporting the truth?

The truth is suicides went up, more and more troops succeeded at committing suicide and far more tried multiple times even after everything was "being done" to prevent them. The truth says no matter how many Bills members of Congress got their names attached to, we went to more funerals.

For every active duty servicemember and veteran counted, there is a family in mourning wondering what they could have done differently. That anguish led to action and they got the ear of some member of Congress. Everyone wanted to do something to make a difference but no one wanted to take responsibility when that "something" they did made it worse.

We paid attention to the reports of veterans being turned down for claims in the 80's and 90's as much as we did after troops were sent to Afghanistan and Iraq. We paid attention to the fact that as these troops were sent to fight two wars under the War on Terror, the DOD didn't have enough medical personnel and the VA had less doctors, nurses and claims processors than they had during the Gulf War.

When reports surfaced about the lack of care veterans were getting from the VA, we pretty much scratched our heads since none of it was news to us. We've actually seen worse but we stopped hoping for better because of what Congress was doing and reporters ignored. They ignored history.

The veterans community paid attention all along and few support these bills because while the names have changed, the stories remained the same. How many more families have to go to Washington with hope of making a difference before other folks figure out until they start to do differently, nothing will really change?