http://www.alternet.org/world/143837/10_suicides_a_month_at_ft._hood_--_war_stress_is_taking_soldiers_to_the_brink10 Suicides a Month at Ft. Hood -- War Stress Is Taking Soldiers to the Brink
By Dahr Jamail, Asia Times. Posted November 10, 2009.
The shooting tragedy at Fort Hood on Friday points to a much larger problem of combat stress and overdeployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Editor's Note: This Tuesday, President Obama attended a memorial service for the shootings at Ft. Hood last Friday. He called the attack "incomprehensible," when in fact it's quite easy to comprehend. Obama would do well to consider that the war policies he's continuing, extending the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, are the underlying cause of acts of madness and desperation by soldiers at Ft. Hood. As Dahr Jamail illustrates in the article below, this one military post alone is averaging 10 suicides a month so far this year.
PHOENIX, Arizona - While investigators probe for a motive behind the mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas last Thursday, in which an army psychiatrist killed 13 people, military personnel at the base are in shock as the incident "brings the war home".
"We're all in shock," said Specialist Michael Kern, an active-duty veteran of the Iraq war, told Inter Press Service (IPS) by telephone. Kern, who is based at Fort Hood, served in Iraq from March 2007 to March 2008. "Every single person that I've talked to is in shock," Kern
added.
"I'm surprised this hits so close to home, but at the same time, I knew something like this was going to happen given what else is happening - the war is coming home, and something needs to be done. Innocent civilians are being wounded and killed here at home by soldiers, and this is completely unacceptable," he said.
..more..