A Facebook Friend sincerely opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan posted the following link:
After Service, Veteran Deaths Surge
Suicides, vehicle accidents and drug overdoses take lives
By AARON GLANTZ on October 16, 2010 - 2:00 p.m. PDT
Reuben Santos served in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in 2003
In the six years after Reuben Paul Santos returned to Daly City from a combat tour in Iraq, he battled depression with poetry, violent video games and, finally, psychiatric treatment. His struggle ended last October, when he hung himself from a stairwell. He was 27.
The high suicide rate among veterans has already emerged as a major issue for the military and the families and loved ones of military personnel. But Santos' death is part of a larger trend that has remained hidden: a surge in the number of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans who have died not just as a result of suicide, but also because of vehicle accidents, motorcycle crashes, drug overdoses or other causes after being discharged from the military.
An analysis of official death certificates on file at the State Department of Public Health reveals that more than 1,000 California veterans under 35 died between 2005 and 2008. That figure is three times higher than the number of California service members who were killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts over the same period. The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs said they do not count the number of veterans who have died after leaving the military.
Read the whole thing here. It's a shocking indictment of our military's lack of care for our returning service men and women. It is also demonstrably false. Indeed virtually everything about this analysis is false.
The article argues that the number of deaths among California military veterans under 35 during the period 2005 to 2008 was three times the number of military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time and implies that this was caused by the horrible trauma of war and the callous indifference of the military. Simple right? No. In the US there are 2,142,000 veterans in that age group. At no time were there more than 200,000 service members "In Country" in the wars - and far fewer actually in combat. Therefore in a non-war situation one would expect veterans deaths to exceed in-country deaths by more than ten-fold, that they only exceed it three-fold is a testament to the deadliness of war.
Indeed a quick analysis of the data using the Federal Government's mortality statistics for men aged 20 to 35 and adjusting for the proportion of all veterans who come from California (I assume they are proportionate to the state's share of the national population) I find that more than a 1000 California veterans should have died during this time period. Essentially the 1,000 deaths are the normal 4 year mortality for any population of men in that age group.
Even after acknowledging that he does not know how many of the veterans who died had served in a war zone, the author continues to talk about how 'returning veterans' were dying far more often than active duty soldiers 'in country'. He must know that the great majority of the 2.142 million veterans in this age group never ever served in Iraq or Afghanistan, including virtually all Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard veterans.
I don't fault my FB Friend for any of this. Lord knows that I have often published statistics that supported my opinions only having to backtrack later when I find that they were distorted or dishonest. I fault the 'activists' of both sides who exploit their own supporters. After all I, being a war supporter I am very unlikely to take such reports at face value. It's high time that we hold so called 'activists' of all stripes to much higher standards of proof, whether they are pitching 'the poor, poor soldier as victim' or 'Barack Obama isn't an American citizen'.
And there's another truly cruel aspect of all this: the families of veterans who died in questionable circumstances now are led to believe that 'someone' could have done 'something' had only they seen the 'signs' of the veteran's 'post traumatic stress' that led him to wreck/fight/kill himself. Yet the data show there is no mortal effect of PTS - veterans die at essentially the same rates of other people their ages. This pain and second guessing and misplaced rage that haunts families is based upon lies.
We have a huge challenge to get our nation back on track, cheap left or right wing agitprop does not help.
No comments:
Post a Comment