The Life and Death of Clay Hunt

I don’t know how many of you watched CBS’s 60 Minutes  this past Sunday, but they had on a segment  entitled, The Life and Death of Clay Hunt. I have supplied you the link, please take 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to watch this…http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50142077n (Sorry, you will have to watch a commercial first…but it is a small price to pay.)

Shame on me…I knew the suicide rate was high among veterans…but I had no idea…I dare say, you didn’t either. Perhaps having a name and face added to the statistic made it resonate with me. Here it is Wednesday, and I still can’t shake it.

We can all argue the merits of the wars we have been engaged in this past decade, but the harsh reality is that just a small percentage of us have carried the burden. The rest us us…well, our life has pretty much remained the same. We assuage any feelings of guilt by saying those who served did that of their own volition…they volunteered.

There are those of you who at least had the decency to go line the streets as a hearse made its way to the cemetery to bury a fallen hero. I couldn’t even find the time to do that.

We have asked more than we should have from these brave men, and now women. We trained them to do the country’s dirty work. We asked them to leave their loved ones and go to god-forsaken places to fight for all of us…to protect us, so we could go on with our lives without interruption. What sacrifice did we make?

And when they returned, what thanks did we give them?

They returned with images burned into their souls, images that haunt them. They returned to broken relationships caused by long absences…to spouses whom had learned to live without them, to children who didn’t know them. They came back to little prospect of a civilian job. They came back to mounting debt due to a household left without its primary breadwinner for months on end. They came back to no psychological help on how to transition from a life of killing and a fear of being killed…to a life of tranquility in suburbia.

Think I am exaggerating any of this? Check out these statistics compiled by 60 Minutes…

*”Between 1995 and 2007, there were almost 2,200 suicides. That's 188 last year alone. But these numbers included only "active duty" soldiers.”The government does not keep track of those veterans who left the service and then committed suicide.

* To get a better grasp of the situation, CBS asked for documentation from all 50 states. Forty-five states responded, here are the results…”In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That's 120 each and every week, in just one year.”

* This CBS study “found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.)”

*What about the group who just fought the wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan? Here is where it gets really interesting… “One age group stood out. Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)”

*Here is the worst statistic of them all,” In 2012, 349 active members of the Armed Forces took their own lives, more than who died in combat.”

We now live in the Alice in Wonderland period of sequestration in America, thanks to our do-nothing politicians. My fear is that the brave men and women will be left further unprotected. Those who did the heavy lifting will see funds earmarked to making them whole again dwindle. They deserve better!

Perhaps it is time the rest of us fought to protect those that fought to protect us. Maybe we could write to the President and ask him to forgo one of his family vacations. Maybe we could ask those in Congress to actually do their job…and if they can’t do that…maybe they could just stay home where they can’t make matters worse.

Please watch the video. Don’t let Clay’s death be in vain…we owe him at least 10 minutes of our time.