Commentary: How to stop veteran suicides

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Commentary: How to stop veteran suicides
By Aaron Glantz | The Progressive Media Project
Posted on Monday, November 9, 2009

This Veterans Day, let's do more to prevent our troops from taking their own lives. Community colleges can play a pivotal role in the life-saving process.

Eighteen American war veterans kill themselves every day. One thousand former soldiers receiving care from the Department of Veterans Affairs attempt suicide every month. In January of this year, the Army reports, more of our active-duty soldiers killed themselves than died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

It wasn't long ago that T.J. Boyd nearly became one of those statistics.

Boyd doesn't look like a disabled veteran. The 29-year-old former Marine sergeant sports a winning smile and shows no obvious wounds in his muscular 6-foot frame. He even runs his own personal training business out of his home in Sacramento, Calif.

But Boyd suffers from two of the invisible injuries of our wars: post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. And when he returned to his boyhood home in Southern Illinois after his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he nearly took his own life.


Rest of article at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/340/story/78556.html