America: Healing the ‘Invisible Wound’

Article here. Excerpt:

'Lt. Col. (Ret.) Dar Place was two feet away when his friend and fellow soldier took his own life during the Gulf War. Two decades later, like so many other veterans, Place is still haunted by the plague of suicide in the military.

“I personally saw my driver after Desert Storm in his tank put a gun underneath his mouth and pull the trigger, while I was no further away from him than I am from you right now,” Place told the Washington Free Beacon at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. He was one of the dozens of activists with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) who planted thousands of flags to honor veterans who had killed themselves.

By noon, 1,892 American flags graced the Mall, representing the number of veterans who have taken their life this year alone since January 1st—an average of 22 per day.
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The number of suicides among active-duty military personnel eclipsed the number of casualties in the War on Terror in 2012. The number of young veterans taking their own life has increased dramatically since 2009, and a record 349 active-duty service members committed suicide last year.

IAVA honored veterans from all wars who have died from suicide on Thursday. One of the groups’ allies in Congress is Sen. John Walsh (D., Mont.), the first Iraq war combat veteran to serve in the Senate.'