The Toll of the Forever and Ever Wars

McClatchy reports:

On March 7, 2007, Army Spc. Trevor Hogue was inside his barracks in Baghdad, describing his morning on the battlefield.

"I saw things today that I think will mess me up for life," Hogue typed to his mother, Donna, as she sat at her computer thousands of miles away from Iraq, in Granite Bay.

That day the young soldier, whose assignment included driving a Humvee through perhaps the most dangerous ZIP code on the globe, saw his sergeant blown to pieces. He saw the bodies of half of the men in his platoon torn apart. Heads were cut off and limbs severed. It happened 30 yards in front of him, and he had never been so afraid, he told his mom.

"My arms are around you," Donna Hogue wrote. "You'll be alright."

Trevor made it home from Iraq, but he was not alright. Last week, at age 24, he hung himself in the backyard of his childhood home.

The suicide rate among soldiers continues at a record pace.

The Army released a report this week detailing the climb:

As many as 17 soldiers took their own lives during May, 10 more than in April, despite aggressive efforts by the Army to get soldiers the help they need.

The number of suicides had been steadily going down since January, when 23 soldier deaths were thought to be suicides, to April when seven soldiers’ deaths were investigated as possible suicides. This year’s deaths are on pace to come close to last year’s 144 suicides, an unprecedented number for the Army.

One of the May deaths was confirmed as a suicide and 16 were listed by the Army as potential suicides.

So far this calendar year, 82 deaths have been investigated among active-duty troops, including Reserve and National Guard soldiers on active duty. Of the 82 deaths, 45 have been confirmed as suicides and 37 are pending the outcome of ongoing investigations, according to Army statistics released June 11.

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli says, “We have got to do better.”

Yeah, when someone comes up with a kinder, gentler war...be sure to let us know.

-Diane