Catastrophe - Dick Morris [131]
Mazie K. Hirono (HI)
Jason Altmire (PA)
Timothy J. Walz (MN)
Heath Shuler (NC)
Michael A. Arcuri (NY)
Harry E. Mitchell (AZ)
Christopher P. Carney (PA)
John J. Hall (NY)
Steve Kagen (WI)
Steve Cohen (TN)
Laura Richardson (CA)
Albio Sires (NJ)
Donna F. Edwards (MD)
Solomon P. Ortiz (TX)
Phil Hare (IL)
John A. Boccieri (OH)
Mark H. Schauer (MI)
Betsy Markey (CO)
Parker Griffith (AL)
Michael E. McMahon (NY)
Thomas S. P. Perriello (VA)
Dina Titus (NV)
Harry Teague (NM)
Republicans
John L. Mica (FL) (Ranking Republican Member)
Don Young (AK)
Thomas E. Petri (WI)
Howard Coble (NC)
John J. Duncan, Jr. (TN)
Vernon J. Ehlers (MI)
Frank A. LoBiondo (NJ)
Jerry Moran (KS)
Gary G. Miller (CA)
Henry E. Brown (SC)
Timothy V. Johnson (IL)
Todd Russell Platts (PA)
Sam Graves (MO)
Bill Shuster (PA)
John Boozman (AK)
Shelley Moore Capito (WV)
Jim Gerlach (PA)
Mario Diaz-Balart (FL)
Charles W. Dent (PA)
Connie Mack (FL)
Lynn A. Westmoreland (GA)
Jean Schmidt (OH)
Candice S. Miller (MO)
Mary Fallin (OK)
Vern Buchanan (FL)
Robert E. Latta (OH)
Brett Guthrie (KY)
Anh “Joseph” Cao (LA)
Aaron Schock (IL)
Pete Olson (TX)
U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
Democrats
Chairman John D. Rockefeller, IV (WV)
Daniel K. Inouye (HI)
John F. Kerry (MA)
Byron L. Dorgan (ND)
Barbara Boxer (CA)
Bill Nelson (FL)
Maria Cantwell (WA)
Frank R. Lautenberg (NJ)
Mark Pryor (AR)
Claire McCaskill (MO)
Amy Klobuchar (MN)
Tom Udall (NM)
Mark Warner (VA)
Mark Begich (AK)
Republicans
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) (Ranking Member)
Olympia J. Snowe (ME)
John Ensign (NV)
Jim DeMint (SC)
John Thune (SD)
Roger Wicker (MS)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
David Vitter (LA)
Sam Brownback (KS)
Mel Martinez (FL)
Mike Johanns (NE)
* * *
16
THE SILENT CATASTROPHE
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Our Military
In January 2009, more American soldiers killed themselves than were slain by enemy combatants.526 The stresses and traumas of war, unabated even by today’s high-tech military environment, are taking a larger toll among our military than all the roadside bombs, ambushes, and suicide bombers combined. This quiet catastrophe has the military scrambling for answers. One senior Army official, speaking anonymously, called the phenomenon “terrifying. We don’t know what is going on,” he added.527
Twenty-four soldiers committed suicide in January 2009. That is six times the total of the previous January.528 Colonel Kathy Platoni, the chief clinical psychologist for the Army Reserve and National Guard, cited multiple deployments, the stigma associated with seeking treatment, and, ironically, the excessive use of antidepressant medication as possible reasons for the problem. (Antidepressants have been found to increase suicide rates, particularly among people aged eighteen to twenty-four.)529
The past year has seen a troubling growth in the suicide rate among our men and women in uniform. CNN reported that the military suicide total for 2008 was “the highest annual level of suicides among soldiers since the Pentagon began tracking the rate 28 years ago.”530 One hundred and twenty-eight soldiers are confirmed to have committed suicide in 2008; another fifteen died from suspected suicides.531 Marine suicides also rose from twenty-five in 2006 to thirty-three in 2007 to forty-one in 2008.532
One underlying factor contributing to the rise in depression and suicide among our fighting forces is that the entire military and veterans’ establishment is geared to treating physical wounds—not wounds of the mind, which are less easily detected but equally dangerous.
Let’s not forget that the second most significant casualty of the war in Vietnam—after the 58,000 Americans who died there—was the massive social disruption it caused in the lives of an entire generation of returning veterans.
Hundreds and hundreds of thousands