The Washington Post has noted, meanwhile,"Veterans are taking their own lives on VA hospital campuses, a desperate form of protest against a system that they feel hasn't helped them."
"Justin Miller, a 33-year-old Marine Corps trumpet player and Iraq veteran" committed suicide in the parking lot in Minneapolis in February this year. The Post article went on to note that "federal investigation into Miller's death found that the Minneapolis VA made multiple errors: not scheduling a follow-up appointment, failing to communicate with his family about the treatment plan and inadequately assessing his access to firearms. Several days after his death, Miller's parents received a package from the Department of Veterans Affairs bottles of antidepressants and sleep aids prescribed to Miller."
In a single 13 month period (from Oct. 2017 through Nov. 2018), some 19 veterans committed suicide on grounds and parking lots of VA hospitals across the USA. However, this has been going on for years before the trend was noted nationally, e.g. "John Toombs, a 32-year-old former Army sergeant and Afghanistan veteran, hanged himself on the grounds of the Alvin C. York VA Medical Center in Murfreesboro, Tenn., the morning before Thanksgiving 2016. "
In August of this year (2019) another veteran took his life in front of a North Carolina VA hospital. Incongruous VA "Department officials have also said the rate of suicide on VA medical campuses has decreased in recent years, even as the number of veterans who take their own lives in public areas of those locations has risen."
On the other hand, " According to department estimates, about 20 veterans a day take their own lives nationwide. Of that group, 14 of them have little to no contact with the department."
MISFOCUS ON DRAFT NOW RISING IN U.S.A.
Elliot Ackerman , the author of the memoir Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning and three novels, including Waiting for Eden, wrote an article for TIME magazine in October 2019 advocating a draft to end the fact that only the poor and misled youth go to war these days.
Ackerman served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. For me, this is incongruous, too.
Why aren't Vets demanding the end to war en-masse in order to save Americans from more suffering?
Quite logically, as a whole, most citizens of the USA are a bit brainwashed or very brainwashed by endless war propaganda dating back to the Cold War and post-Vietnam War amnesia and mind-manipulation sponsored by the Pentagon and other stakeholders in America's large standing armyabroad. The needs of Empire need to soak the poor (in order to push them to the militarization of selve option) and have financing of the rich.
So, major media circles still do not pushing to end America's overreached military footprint and enable us to have things like having a good society for the majority of Americans as presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has finally featured in her newest health care plan.
Vets need to circle the wagon with the Progressives and reduce our military footprint globally, bring the boys and girls home, and Really Make America Wonderful Again
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