VFA News Analysis: May 12, 2008

The growing suicide rate among combat veterans is prompting concern, as it should, among a wider circle of officials, civilians and others worried about the fallout of the ongoing wars. Recent data indicates an average of 18 veterans commit suicide everyday. In California in 2006, 666 committed suicide, more than a fifth of all of the state’s suicides that year.

More attention is also falling on the ripple effect that long and multiple deployments are having across the military community and beyond. Families kept apart, children without parents, the strain of war — it’s keeping chaplains busy around the clock and highlighting shortcomings in mental health care treatment available.

Despite a cease-fire agreement, U.S. forces battled Shiite militiamen in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood. The U.S. military has repeatedly expressed hopes that peace can be worked out in the last seven weeks as fighting in the neighborhood of about half the capital’s six million people rages.

It will be a reunion of sorts for mother and son, but not the sort most families dream of. Sgt. Carmen Villegas, a combat medic, was transferred two weeks ago to the same New Jersey National Guard unit as her son, Sgt. Felipe Diaz. They’ll both be among nearly 3,000 soldiers of the 50th Infantry Brigade Combat Team heading to Iraq in September.  About half of the state’s entire National Guard is preparing to deploy this year.