Dying for Zion - Suicide 'epidemic' among US vets
Suicide has reached epidemic proportions amongst US veterans while the Department of Veterans Affairs attempts to conceal the fact.
According to a recent investigation by CBS network, around 120 US veterans take their own lives every week. The report also says that 6,256 veterans committed suicide in 2005; an average of 17 per day.
"Those numbers clearly show an epidemic of mental health problems," the father of a 23-year-old soldier who shot himself in 2005 said, adding that the military did not want the true severity of the problem to be known.
Veterans' rights advocate Paul Sullivan says mental health problems are at the top of the list among US veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.
The survey concluded one third of the 1.6 million US veterans who serve in Afghanistan and Iraq come home with mental problems, which force them face serious social, career and family difficulties.
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