Life and death struggle for veterans, lost on reporters

PTSD potentially a life and death struggle for veterans
Lima Ohio News
By Bryan Reynolds
MAY 26, 2018

Veterans with PTSD face second life and death struggle

LIMA — Barney Hovest of Pandora last saw his son alive on Easter 2016 while driving him home to Chicago after spending the holiday in Ohio.

Staff Sgt. Benjamin Hovest had served two tours of duty in Iraq with the Army Rangers 82nd Airborne from 2002 to 2003 and in 2006. He returned home from his first tour showing symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Barney Novest holds a photograph of his son Benjamin with his jacket and flag. Benjamin was an Army Ranger in the Iraq war that suffered from PTSD and took his life in 2016.

“He was different when he came home after his first tour,” his father said. “We talked on the way home and he actually talked about committing suicide. And I said, ‘You know you can’t do that. That would just kill us all.’ He goes, ‘I know, I just started going to this veterans group and talking.’ I really thought, ‘Finally, he’s talking to somebody at least.’”

On June 5, 2016, Hovest received the call no parent should ever receive. His son had turned his suicidal thoughts into action. After 13 years of dealing with PTSD, Benjamin Hovest wrote letters to each family member, got the military paperwork together his family would need for organizing a funeral, walked behind the place he was living and shot himself in a deserted alley.

“I was shocked because I thought he just sounded like he was different. He’s finally getting some help talking to these other vets,” Hovest said. “I don’t know what happened that day or that night. It’s a phone call I’d rather not ever get again.”
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Did you notice the date? How is it that the press still settles for what they think is happening instead of ever researching how it got worse than they can imagine?

Isn't that what they are supposed to be doing?

This is Memorial Day weekend, and tomorrow is the official day we are supposed to be honoring the lives lost keeping this nation free.

Some died in combat and others died because of it. It is for them we have got to get this right...and long overdue.

'He Had A Very Sad Heart': This Memorial Day, Remembering The Overlooked Heroes on NPR seemed like a good story to read.

In 2012, Army Spc. Robert Joseph Allen took his own life while serving in the U.S. military. At the time, the suicide rate for active-duty troops was at its highest ever, with more soldiers dying from suicide than in combat. Since then a law enacted in 2014 requires all service members to undergo one-on-one mental health screenings once a year and there's been growing attention to reducing military suicide.

It looks like NPR failed to read this report before doing this story. Department of Defense Quarterly Suicide Report which shows that after the "law was enacted in 2014, it did no good at all. Keep in mind that as the number of suicide remained about the same, the number of enlisted went down.

The "training" to prevent suicides started over a decade ago and the "law" that said they had to have mental health screenings did not happen. All NPR had to do is review the videos on C Span during hearings with the Committees and hear Generals say they were not doing "post" deployment screenings and the Senators held none of them accountable for ignore the law.

Maybe if all the reporters paid attention all along there would be fewer veterans in their graves instead of in their homes.