Theophillis Goodyear: US Veteran Suicides: 25 for each combat death, 18 a day every day year after year + Meta-RECAP

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According to the New York Times, for every U.S. soldier killed on the Battlefield this year, 25 committed suicide.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/15/veteran-death-nation-shame_n_1427263.html

The whole story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/kristof-a-veterans-death-the-nations-shame.html?_r=1

A related topic:

MDMA (known on the street as ecstasy) is showing promise as a psychotherapeutic tool for helping people with post traumatic stress disorder. Here's some info from Vanderbilt University:

http://healthpsych.psy.vanderbilt.edu/2008/PTSD_MDMA.htm

Some more info on MDMA therapy:

http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/

http://www.military.com/news/article/study-ecstasy-treats-ptsd.html

Of course, conservatives tend to resist this kind of psychotherapy, even if it has shown promise, because they had a hard time getting beyond the fact that the drug produces euphoria. But one psychotherapist got special permission from the U.S. government to do a study using MDMA to treat PTSD. I think it's past time they expanded the program to try to start helping soldiers NOW. Before MDMA was made illegal, it was being commonly used as a tool of psychotherapy. So there's plenty of collected information on the subject, going all the way back to the eighties.

Phi Beta Iota: 18 US veterans a DAY succeed in killing themselves. A 1000 a month attempt to do so. This is a problem that in a properly managed government would lead to the firing of everyone from the Secretary of Defense down through the Army Chief of Staff to the head of Army personnel. Post-traumatic stress syndrome is a factor, but cognitive dissonance is a greater factor. We also need to remember depleted uranium and bio-chemical left-overs. These people cannot live with what they have done in our name and they live with the toxic environments we fund for them. Because military flag officers have lacked the integrity to dispute illegal unconstitutional orders to wage war on the world, they have put their troops into situations that did not warrant the insertion of our military, and that drawn out over time have destroyed our military and our veterans and therefore our society.

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Graphic: US Combat Veteran Unemployment & Suicide [Current Suicide Headline Links Added]

Defense Science Board to DoD: Get Brain + RECAP

Joseph Stiglitz: The True Cost of 9/11 — Includes 18 Veteran Suicides a Day

Journal: Cognitive Dissonance, Military Suicides, and an Alternative Interpretation of the Fort Hood Deaths

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Marcus Aurelius: US at Permanent “War” + War RECAP

Obama in a Strategic & Intellectual Vacuum

Reference: CJCS & Frog 6 Strategic Guidance Side-by-Side (Each is Six Pages)

Reference: The Pentagon Labyrinth

Reference: US Veteran Suicides – 1000 Attempts Each Month, 18 Actual Deaths by Suicide Each Day

Robert Steele: Cutting the US Military Budget – and Firing the Civilian and Uniformed “Leaders” Betraying the Public Trust + RECAP