News Analysis: May 18, 2009
Even today, years into two wars that have produced devastating levels of stress and sky-high numbers of PTSD cases, the stigma of treatment still keeps countless sufferers from seeking help. Lack of treatment creates even deeper problems for our stressed-out troops: the suicide rate among soldiers has doubled in the last four years. After last week’s shooting massacre on a US base outside of Baghdad, the military establishment is still working to come to terms with the countless, invisible scars of war accumulating in the ranks.
As anyone who has been paying attention already knows, our military is stressed beyond reasonable levels by multiple deployments to war with too little rest, and limited psychological care. This is true too for our Guard and Reserve members, who have been carrying a far heavier load than ever before these last nearly eight years.
Poor choice of words, perhaps, but the truth is that all of our veterans who require psychological care and counseling should get it, regardless of the war they fought in. Period.
The new GI Bill: opening more educational opportunities for our veterans. More than 25,000 service members and vets and applied for post-9/11 GI Bill benefits during the first two weeks of the program — far more than was expected. Meanwhile, President Obama has proposed increasing payments to tens of thousands of disabled military retirees.
How ready are Iraq’s security forces, and how much distrust still exists between them and US forces? Will Afghanistan’s army be ready in two to four years? And what of Pakistan? With billions in proposed military aid from the US, why is Pakistan rapidly building its nuclear arsenal? Pakistan can’t use these weapons against insurgents, but it can against its long-time rival, and world’s largest democracy, India.
Helping children with a parent buried in Arlington National Cemetery…
First the first lady, now the wife of the vice president: meeting with military families…