Forgetting Those Betrayed Insured More Suicides

In 2007 Obama was onto the fact troops were being kicked out of the military but that didn't do much good since they just kept on doing it.

The pre-existing part is the kicker — because it means that the Pentagon, acting like your least favorite HMO, won’t pick up the cost of the medical care of these troops after it discharges them. “They’ve kicked out about 22,000 troops who they say have pre-existing personality disorders. I don’t believe that,” Missouri Sen. Kit Bond told the newspaper. “And when you kick them out, they don’t get the assistance they need, they aren’t entitled to DOD or Veterans Administration care for those problems.” Bond and Obama have introduced a bill to attempt to remedy this outrage.

By now just about everyone has heard of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Act and how it was supposed to be different from everything else that has been done. There is nothing new in it other than more veterans have committed suicide since the other bills were passed with the same claim about addressing the issue. Tribute to Justin Bailey

Parents blame VA in fatal overdose
An Iraq war veteran should have been watched more closely, his family says, because of his abuse of drugs.
LA Times
Mary Engel
March 12, 2007

Iraq war veteran Justin Bailey checked himself in to the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center just after Thanksgiving.

Among the first wave of Marines sent into battle, the young rifleman had been diagnosed since his return with posttraumatic stress disorder and a groin injury. Now, Bailey acknowledged to his family and a friend, he needed immediate treatment for his addiction to prescription and street drugs.

"We were so happy," said his stepmother, Mary Kaye Bailey, 41. "We were putting all of our faith into those doctors."

On Jan. 25, Justin Bailey got prescriptions filled for five medications, including a two-week supply of the potent painkiller methadone, according to his medical records.

VETERANS' MENTAL HEALTH AND OTHER CARE IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 2008
110th Congress

This bill had Peer Specialist Training

Peer Specialist.--To be eligible to be appointed to a peer specialist position, a person must
(A) be a veteran who has recovered or is recovering from a mental health condition; and
(B) be certified by--(i) a not-for-profit entity engaged in peer specialist training as having met such criteria as the Secretary shall establish for a peer specialist position; (ii) a State as having satisfied relevant State requirements for a peer specialist position.''.

Officials seek ways to stem increasing military suicides
Philly.com
By Edward Colimore, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: February 28, 2011

When Army Sgt. Coleman Bean left Iraq to resume his civilian life in New Jersey, he was a changed man.

No longer as outgoing, he appeared subdued and unfocused after two combat deployments. He also began drinking too much.

"I thought he just needed to unwind," said his mother, Linda Bean of East Brunswick. "I was just so grateful to have him home in one piece."

But inside, the 25-year-old veteran carried disturbing memories of Iraq, including one of women and children burning alive in a bus fire.

A few months after his 2008 homecoming, Bean couldn't deal with his feelings anymore. He wrecked his Jeep one night, was charged with DUI, and took a cab to his apartment in South River, Middlesex County, where he fatally shot himself.
read more here

N.J. military suicide prevention helpline to become national program
The Star-Ledger
By Mark Mueller
December 12, 2011

Linda Bean of East Brunswick testified before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs in Washington, DC, on July 14, 2010. Bean, whose son Coleman committed suicide after two tours of duty in Iraq, urged Congress to pass legislation that would benefit soldiers returning home from the war.

Vets4Warriors, a peer-to-peer helpline administered by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, will be available Tuesday morning to members and veterans of the National Guard in all 50 states and four U.S. territories, officials are due to announce today. The program also is open to members of the military reserves.

In all, about 950,000 service members will have access to Vets4Warriors, said Chris Kosseff, the chief executive officer of UMDNJ’s University Behavioral HealthCare division, which runs the Piscataway call center with support from the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

Joshua Omvig

The effects were apparent enough that others noticed. One of Josh's first desires was a meal at McDonald's. While there, the family encountered a veteran of the Vietnam War.

The older man saw the jitters and addressed Josh.

"'I know. It will get better. Thank you for your service,'" Ellen remembers the man saying.

Josh only shared information about Iraq in one- or two-sentence fragments at a time. But as they spent time together, his parents learned driving presented perceived threats to the veteran. Deer along the road. Headlights in the review mirror. Ordinary items, like culverts, that to Josh represented hiding places.

"His head was on a pivot," Randy says.

Josh was in his truck. The doors were locked. Ellen pleaded with her son to not do what he was contemplating. Her appeals turned to screams.

Ellen did not the time Josh had already called a friend, police officer Terry Oltman. He asked Oltman to stop by the house in a few minutes.

Seeing what was developing, Oltman ordered Ellen away from the car, she remembers. Ellen refused to leave her son.

Josh raised a handgun and fired a single shot. He turned his head slightly to avoid possibly injuring his mother.

"I just can't believe how much can happen in one minute," Ellen says.

Father and mother want information in their son's suicide note held privately. Save for the closing thought:

"I will always love you. Josh."

The family buried their soldier with help from the U.S. Army Reserve 339th Military Police Company.

Josh Omvig was 22.

"He thought it would get better because he was home," Westly says. "And it never got better. It got worse."

Josh told his mother once he died in Iraq. But he kept living for another year.

President Bush Signs H.R. 327 and H.R. 1284 into Law
White House News
On Monday, November 5, 2007, the President signed into law:

H.R. 327, the "Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act," which requires VA to develop and implement a comprehensive program to reduce the incidence of suicide among veterans; and

H.R. 1284, the "Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2007," which provides a cost-of-living increase for the beneficiaries of veterans' disability compensation and dependency and indemnity compensation.

Joseph Dwyer, famous for running with a child in his arms in Iraq, was sent to Iraq because his wife was worried about being deployed and having to leave her own children.

GI in Famous Photo Defeated By His Demons

Warren Zinn / Army Times file
Joseph Dwyer carries a young Iraqi boy who was injured during a battle between the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment and Iraqi forces near the village of Al Faysaliyah, Iraq, on March 25, 2003.

When it became clear that the U.S. would invade Iraq, Knapp became distraught, confiding to Dwyer that she would rather disobey her deployment orders than leave her kids.

Dwyer asked to go in her place. When she protested, he insisted: "Trust me, this is what I want to do. I want to go." After a week of nagging, his superiors relented.

Dwyer assured his parents, Maureen and Patrick — and his new wife, Matina, whom he'd married in August 2002 — that he was being sent to Kuwait and would likely stay in the rear, far from the action.

But it wasn't true. Unbeknownst to his family, Dwyer had been attached to the 3rd Infantry's 7th Cavalry Regiment. He was at "the tip of the tip of the spear," in one officer's phrase.

I could keep going on this but it would take far too long and wouldn't do any of the others the justice they properly deserve. They all mattered. They mattered to their families, friends and those they serve with. Their lives cut short mattered for a time to members of congress, but as with most things, they just didn't matter enough to remember them, or what they do, or what was done in their name, the next time another name made headlines it their hometowns and congressmen once again, got to sponsor another bill with their names on it as another headstone was carved with the name of the past heroes they claimed to honoring.