Dear Soldiers: Your Government Lied to You By Aaron Glantz

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19187.htm


26/01/08 "Antiwar" -- - When young American men and women sign up to serve in US military, our government makes a basic promise to them: that if they are wounded in the line of duty they will get the care they need. Unfortunately, for tens of thousands of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, that's a promise that only exists on paper....

The Washington Post's coverage of the Scandal at Walter Reed sparked outrage and finger-pointing across official Washington, but the controversy did not solve the problem of substandard care. Eight months later, in September, Sergeant GJ Cassidy died while receiving treatment for blast injuries at Fort Knox. A GAO report released at the time of his death showed half of the military's Warrior Transition Units had "significant shortfalls" of doctors, nurses and other caregivers who to treat wounded soldiers.

It's not known how many other soldiers have died the way GJ Cassidy did – alone while allegedly seeking medical care from their government. But what we do know that increasingly veterans of the Iraq war are taking their own lives, when the Pentagon and the VA fail to provide adequate medical care.

A CBS news investigation in November found that 120 veterans kill themselves every week; or over 6,000 per year. CBS asked all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records for veterans and non-veterans, and found that veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide, Among those taking their own lives was Sergeant Brian Jason Rand, who served two tours in Iraq. On February 20, 2007, the Clarksville, Tennessee police department found his body lying facedown under an entertainment pavilion on the banks of the Cumberland River, with a shotgun beside it.

Then there are those who become homeless because of government inaction. On any given night 200,000 veterans sleep homeless on the street. Increasingly those veterans are younger folks who served in Iraq and Afghanistan....

WHen in the hell will ever learn?

It's depressing.