Source: Raw Story
The Army's suicide rate is the highest it has been in three decades, and a week-long series of articles at Salon.com has been highlighting what it calls "habitual mistreatment behind the preventable deaths."
Paul Rieckhoff, the founder and executive director of Iraq and
Afghanistan Veterans of America, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on
Thursday, "In January, we lost approximately 24 soldiers in the Army to
suicide. That's more folks than we lost in combat. ... We lost more
soldiers to suicide than to al Qaeda."
"If we lost that many
soldiers to an enemy weapon system, the entire country would be
outraged," Rieckhoff continued. "The Pentagon would be scrambling to do
something about it. We need the same level of urgency around these
suicides."
Rieckhoff's group has been lobbying Congress
this week to do more for veterans needs. "We took dozens of veterans
from around the country," he told Maddow proudly. "We met with over a
hundred lawmakers, we held two press events. ... We highlighted ... the
need for mandatory mental health counseling and we called for advance
funding of the VA."
Rieckhoff said that there's bipartisan
support in Congress for such funding, which is critical because "every
year the VA budget is late, and VA's around the country are forced to
ration care." However, there's also a critical shortage of mental
health counselors.
"This is a place where President Obama can
step up," Rieckhoff remarked. "He could issue a national call to
service and say, 'If you are a qualified mental health care
professional, your country needs you. Help our soldiers, help our
veterans. It doesn't matter how you stand on the war. You can step up
and make a difference here.'"
"Troops alone are not the answer
[to Afghanistan]," he added. "It's not an antidote to violence. You
don't just drop 30,000 troops in, wave a magic wand and call it
democracy, and make it look like New Jersey."
This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Feb. 12, 2009.
