The Hill News

As we enter into the 8th year of war with Iraq and have already passed the 9th year mark with the war with Afghanistan, the costs of these wars are adding up. There is the economic cost, which has reached the trillion dollar mark at an estimated cost of 2.5 to 4.6 trillion dollars [1]. Yet, the human cost to our troops has been skyrocketing as well, and not just those dying in combat but those who have taken their own lives when they returned home.

We constantly hear the mantra of the psychological effects of fighting in the wars, and that they are taking an extreme toll on the troops. But this mantra brings the horrors of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), military sexual trauma, and traumatic brain injury to just numbers. The facts as just numbers don’t show the real pain to service members and their families. They only reduce that pain to a rating system just like the Veterans Affairs hospitals.

To understand the real pain is to hear the sto! ries of the suicides and the attempted suicides of our service members.

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