by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
April 11, 2013
I am finishing up THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR and the last six months have been hell. It wasn't bad enough reading all the reports collected since 2007 on this blog or reading the heartbreaking emails sent. It was remembering what I thought back when I published my first book FOR THE LOVE OF JACK HIS WAR MY BATTLE. I thought all that had to be done was for people to know what was happening, why it was happening and then we could prevent a lot of suffering.
The original book was published ten years ago and I am sitting here stunned writing a book on military suicides because people have forgotten what happened yet again so all the mistakes have been repeated over and over again. I am also wondering if President Obama remembers what he was doing eight years ago? Does he even remember what he thought way back then when he was paying close attention to what servicemen and women were going through?
When he was Senator Obama somehow he managed to get away from the press covering his campaign and traveled to meet Matt Kuntz because he was taking action after his step-brother Chris Dana committed suicide. He was with the Montana National Guards.
Montana National Guard Spec. Chris Dana will never know the impact his life and ultimately his death may someday have on the lives of veterans nationwide.Most people back then were not talking about military suicides or PTSD but Senator Obama was not only talking about them, he was trying to do something about them as a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. I didn't expect less from him considering he was fighting for our veterans and troops hard in 2005.
Dana took his life in March 2007, less than two years after returning from a tour in Iraq. His family believes he was a victim of post traumatic stress disorder, brought on by his combat experience.
Since Dana’s death, his stepbrother Matt Kuntz has campaigned for more awareness of the costs of untreated post traumatic stress syndrome in Iraq war veterans. Wednesday, he was invited to meet with Sen. Barack Obama to share the message he’s been spreading statewide for more than a year. At a quiet picnic table at Riverfront Park Obama sat across from Kuntz, his wife Sandy and their infant daughter Fiona.
Kuntz was heavy with emotion, but hopeful and eager to share Dana’s story, and tell the senator about his work to ensure other Montana veterans aren’t suffering from the same condition that made his step-brother take his life.
In 2005 it was Senator Obama sitting on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee talking about the VA billion-dollar budget shortfall when Jim Nicholson was Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Obama Says $1 Billion Shortfall in VA Health Care Budget Requires Emergency Funding "I don't think anyone wants to look a returning soldier in the eye who fought and bled for our country and say 'Sorry, but when it comes to getting health care, you're on your own,'" said Obama. "We recently passed a budget where we had no problem finding billions and billions of dollars to give away in tax cuts, but when it comes to health care for veterans, the VA is forced to scrape for dollars by pilfering their rainy day funds."Fast forward to this year and reading about the billions of dollars spent every year on the failed programs the military has pushed leading up to the deadliest suicide rate of all has me wondering where that guy went.
“On March 26, 2005, Senator Obama voted to add an additional $2.85 billion to the VA health care budget, but the amendment was defeated.”
I understand he has a lot on his mind and has a been elected twice to get things done while having to put up with Congress no longer interested in what the majority of the American people wanted him to do, but this, this is something that can't get fixed with more money. It has to be fixed with knowledge, the same kind of knowledge he had back in 2005 before these programs began. They all happened while he was President and I am sure he thought he was doing the right thing but he stopped paying attention or he would have seen these programs are the problem.
On April 15th you'll know what has been happening and you will understand we need the President and the Senator to meet again. I don't want to keep looking into the eyes of veterans that didn't get the help they needed or more Moms when they are blaming themselves for the suicides of their children.
