Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

"The current American administration has responded with denial and spin to the suicides of American soldiers serving in or recently returned from Afghanistan and Iraq. Such manipulation is a conscious and deliberate betrayal of public trust and has generously served some while others have borne the cost." -- Penny Coleman, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War

The following is but a partial list of OEF/OIF suicides (combat-zone and stateside) reported in the press to date. There are many more that I haven't been able to find/record yet. These listed below have been added to the PTSD Timeline housed by ePluribus Media for further research, reporting, and study. (All names have been removed to respect privacy, although each incident's corresponding PTSD Timeline source link will take you to the press report in which the incident and victim's name appears.) I've chosen not to include murder/suicides -- of which I know there to be at least 7 cases known to date.

• 06-16-2003 A 24-year old combat veteran intentionally overdosed while in Iraq the day after Father's Day.

• 07-03-2003 A 20-year old Army private first class based out of Fort Polk, LA committed suicide while serving in Iraq with the 502nd Military Intelligence Company, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

• 07-04-2003 A 36-year old Army Master Sgt., who'd been evacuated from Kuwait 2 weeks earlier following an overdose, hung himself while getting treatment for PTSD.

• 01-12-2004 A 43-year old Army Spc., who'd been evacuated from Iraq due to debilitating back pain, hung himself with the sash of his bathrobe while getting treatment for PTSD at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

• 01-17-2004 A 28-year old Army Specialist who'd recently re-enlisted "walked out of the 101st Airborne base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, checked into a motel room, and put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. The police discovered his body four days later, along with containers of household poison.

• 03-07-2004 An 18-year old Marine was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head while deployed in Kuwait. He was found in a chapel, military investigators listing it as a suicide.

• 03-14-2004 A 36-year old Army Special Forces Chief Warrant Officer and Iraq vet based out of Fort Carson, CO committed suicide a mere three weeks after returning home to his wife and three children.

• 03-18-2004 A 6-times decorated executive officer of the Army Reserve's 909th Forward Surgical Team having returned from combat duty in Afghanistan shot and killed himself.

• 03-21-2004 A 22-year old Marine combat rifleman hanged himself with is own belt in his apartment, from his bathroom showerhead, two months after being honorably discharged.

• 05-27-2004 A 33-year old staff sergeant (based out of Fort Jackson, SC), state trooper, and Gulf War I vet returned from a year's deployment in Iraq afraid of seeking psychological help because of what it might mean for his career.

• 06-22-2004 A 23-year old Marine Reserve who fought in the battle of Nasiriyah hung himself a year after returning home from military duty.

• 06-22-2004 A 36-year old Persian Gulf War combat veteran, who'd served in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, committed suicide following a 13 year struggle with PTSD.

• 08-00-2004 A 40-year old Special Forces Seargant based out of Fort Carson, CO shot himself six weeks after he returned from Iraq.

• 08-18-2004 A 48-year old New Hampshire National Guardsman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound a mere day after returning home from Iraq.

• 09-24-2004 A 23-year old Army communications specialist who'd served a 10 month tour in Afghanistan committed suicide 3 weeks after his return home to his family.

• 11-05-2004 An Army Captain fatally shot himself in the chest a year after returning from Iraq.

• 12-06-2004 A 25-year old Iraqi vet based out of Fort Riley, KS, husband and father of two, hanged himself in his barracks.

• 01-09-2005 A 19-year old combat veteran and Marine who'd told family members he didn't want to return to Iraq fired on Modesto police officers in an apparent premeditated ambush ("suicide by cop").

• 02-03-2005 A 34-year old Special Forces soldier who'd served in Afghanistan shot himself "at his ex-wife's home near the North Carolina base.

• -2-28-2005 A 26-year old Marine who'd personally been reenlisted by the Secretary of the Navy, Gordon R. England, at the peak of Mount Suribachi above Iwo Jima the year before, committed suicide.

• 04-17-2005 A 30-year old Delaware Air National Guard crew chief committed suicide six days after returning from Uzbekistan.

• 06-04-2005 A 44-year old Army colonel and leading scholar of military ethics (whose dissertation had been on the meaning of honor) committed suicide in a military base trailer near Baghdad airport. Shooting himself once in the head with his service pistol, he became the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq (at the time).

• 06-20-2005 A 19-year old Iowa Army National Guardsman who was distraught at the news of his 22-year old brother's death in Iraq, stepped in front of a highway pickup truck killing himself instantly.

• 07-09-2005 A 23-year old Iraq veteran attached to the 10th Special Forces Group based at Fort Carson, CO hanged himself in the post barracks about a month after returning from Iraq.

• 07-26-2005 A 23-year old Iraq combat vet, only 11 days earlier decorated with the Army's Combat Action Badge, shot himself in Tacoma, WA.

• 07-30-2005 A 24-year old Fort Hood [Killeen, TX] Army soldier died "from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

• 08-01-2005 A 22-year old Fort Hood Army radio operator-maintainer who'd signed up with the military as a teen, "was found dead in his apartment by Killeen police, who were alerted after members of his unit tried to contact him when he failed to report to work. ... [T]he cause of death was listed as asphyxiation."

• 09-16-2005 A 53-year old retired brigadier general who'd served in Grenada, Panama, and Iraq committed suicide by shooting himself with a 9mm pistol.

• 11-08-2005 A 20-year old marine lance corporal -- following 9 months combat duty in Iraq -- killed himself 6 weeks after returning home to his family in Oregon.

• 12-22-2005 A 22-year old Army Reserve soldier based in Davenport, IA committed suicide a year after returning from an 11 month tour of duty in Iraq.

• 01-16-2006 A 37-year old Army National Guard Iraq combat zone truck driver who drove "supply convoys along the shooting gallery between Baghdad Airport and LSA Anaconda in Balad -- a giant military base...subject to so many mortar and rocket attacks that the troops have renamed it Mortaritaville," committed suicide.

• 03-03-2006 A 23-year old "2000 Penn Manor graduate [who'd] served five months with the Army in Iraq in 2003, [shooting] at a tank, killing three Iraqis" killed himself after his struggle with PTSD.

May they rest in peace.

To Taps
Day is done, gone the sun,
From the hills, from the lake,
From the skies.
All is well, safely rest,
God is nigh.

Go to sleep, peaceful sleep,
May the soldier or sailor,
God keep.
On the land or the deep,
Safe in sleep.