July 2013
Beware The Coming Storm
We've pulled out of Iraq and the politicians are figuring out how to do the same in Afghanistan. Combat deployments for US troops will decrease over the next year and eventually drop to zero. This might sound like great news for the millions of families with loved ones in the military--and on one level it is--but it will bring new challenges that must be addressed. Military personnel and their families have spent the last decade living with repeated combat deployments. After each deployment there should be a re-adjustment period, a time when the recently-returned veteran comes out of the combat mentality, processes his [...]
A Veteran’s Duty
In 2012, more US service members killed themselves than were killed in combat--349 suicides vs 310 KIA. While numbers don’t tell the whole story, they do identify the fact that mortal danger for US service members is not limited to Afghanistan. The statistics on military suicide are sobering and deserve attention--but that’s not the focus of this post. I want to focus instead on the millions of veterans who might be embarking on the same path that those 349 took last year. I’m no expert on suicide, but I imagine the thought process that brings a person to the decision [...]
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