Support our troops

And stop this madness:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One week after the U.S. Army announced record suicide rates among its soldiers last year, the service is worried about a spike in possible suicides in the new year.

The Army said 24 soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in January alone -- six times as many as killed themselves in January 2008, according to statistics released Thursday.

The Army said it already has confirmed seven suicides, with 17 additional cases pending that it believes investigators will confirm as suicides for January.

If those prove true, more soldiers will have killed themselves than died in combat last month. According to Pentagon statistics, there were 16 U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq in January.

"This is terrifying," an Army official said. "We do not know what is going on."

Col. Kathy Platoni, chief clinical psychologist for the Army Reserve and National Guard, said that the long, cold months of winter could be a major contributor to the January spike.

"There is more hopelessness and helplessness because everything is so dreary and cold," she said.

But Platoni said she sees the multiple deployments, stigma associated with seeking treatment and the excessive use of anti-depressants as ongoing concerns for mental-health professionals who work with soldiers.

Those who are seeking mental-health care often have their treatment disrupted by deployments. Deployed soldiers also have to deal with the stress of separations from families

(Via the Sailor of SteveAudio).

What the end of the world could look like

If we aren't prepared.

Asking a question of John McCain

Can get you questioned by the Secret Service.

The question:

Q: This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I've been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a (expletive)?

The word is cunt, as in:

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt."

The answer:

McCain: Now, now. You don't want to... Um, you know that's the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don't, there's people here who don't respect that kind of language. So I'll move on to the next questioner in the back.

The response:

Clive businessman Marty Parrish was escorted from Sen. John McCain's town hall meeting by Des Moines police and members of the Secret Service after asking McCain if he had called his wife Cindy an expletive in 1992.

Parrish, an ordained Baptist minister who holds a master's degree in political science, was questioned by Secret Service agents before being released. He was not charged in the incident. Parrish asked whether McCain called his wife Cindy an expletive related to the female anatomy, as has been alleged in the book "The Real McCain," written by Dem strategist Cliff Schecter.

I wonder if his name is now on the Terrorist Watch List because he dared ask a question...

And Senator, we really do want to know if you were crass and hot headed enough to curse at your wife undeservedly and in front of reporters. Because it would give us a snapshot of whether you could lose your temper and undeservedly bomb .. say... Iran.

So. Senator. Did you call your wife a cunt?

Losing your home is just in your mind

So apparently is the tanking economy, the destruction of the Constitution, the war in Iraq....



No, he didn't.... Did... Did McCain just tell us to go shopping to make ourselves feel better?

Ruining Iraq's future

One child at a time. Via Cookie Jill at skippy the bush kangaroo:

in 2002, a united nations emergency preparedness report estimated that roughly 1.26 million iraqi children would die in the event of a conflict there. just how many children have died as the result of the war in iraq is unclear, but what of the ones who live? what sort of life, if any at all, awaits them?

according to dr. abdul kareem al obaidi, who is the chairman of the iraqi association for child mental health, iraqi kids are suffering serious psychological and behavioral problems (depression, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, substance abuse, high rates of truancy, etc.) that weren't common in iraq's roughly 16 million children prior to the war.

....what can be salvaged for those children is uncertain. but while we're liberating their country and spreading democracy there, perhaps we should give some thought as to what sort of future we're mapping out for iraq by leaving its people with a population of damaged children who will one day become broken, angry adults with clear memories of how they came to be so.

I'm sure the Veteran's hospital is ready and waiting

To deal with these soldiers as they come home:

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - High rates of mental health disorders are being diagnosed among US military personnel soon after being released from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to investigators in San Francisco.

They estimate that out of 103,788 returning veterans, 25 percent had a mental health diagnosis, and more than half of these patients had two or more distinct conditions.

Those most at risk were the youngest soldiers and those with the most combat exposure, Dr. Karen H. Seal at the Veterans Administration Medical Center and associates report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Seal's group based their findings on records of US veterans deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan who were seen at VA health care facilities between September 2001 and September 2005.

In addition to the high rate of mental health disorders, about one in three (31 percent) were affected by at least one psychosocial diagnosis.

The most frequent diagnosis was post-traumatic stress disorder. Other diagnoses included anxiety disorder, depression, substance use disorder, or other behavioral or psychosocial problem.

We're ready to take care of their problems. Right? Right?!