Iraq, Afghanistan veteran suicides spike

The U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army report that suicides among those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are rising at alarming rates.

In January, the Marine Corps reported that more of its soldiers committed suicide in 2008 than in any year since the U.S.-led invasion began.

The Army released figures showing that 24 soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in January 2009 -- six times as many as in January 2008. "There is an alarming epidemic of suicides among both our active duty military service members and our veterans," says Paul Sullivan, head of Veterans for Common Sense in Washington, D.C., one of the largest veterans groups in the country. "We are looking at the tip of an iceberg of a social catastrophe."

Last year, the RAND Corp. and the Center for Military Health Policy Research investigated the significant rise in cases of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury among veterans of both wars.

The study found that multiple and extended deployments were major contributing factors. Of the 1.8 million personnel that have been deployed to the global war on terror, nearly 40 percent have been deployed more than once, according to the Department of Defense Manpower Data Center.

In addition, today's battlefields -- replete with improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers -- require unrelenting vigilance.

"It's urban combat with no front lines," says Mai Ling Garcia, a senior policy associate for Swords to Plowshares, a veteran services and counseling organization. "The battlefield often has no clear enemy ... what we call 360 degrees of fighting."

According to Veterans Affairs, the number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans receiving treatment in the last four years skyrocketed from 13,000 to 400,000.

Those coming home with mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder rose from 14 percent in 2004 to 45 percent in 2008.

Michael Viterna of Fausone Bohn LLC in Northville, the law firm handling the Randen Harvey case, says these claims for what are often called "soft injuries" are often denied.

"The persistent theme is that if you develop mental problems in the service you are weak and the military weeds out the weak, including the VA," Viterna says.

Veterans say their claims are often denied because of "willful misconduct" or "personality disorder."

"Willful misconduct could be drinking to self-medicate," says Viterna. "A personality disorder is the equivalent of a pre-existing condition. Either way, both are noncompensatory diagnoses."

A steadfast critic of the VA, U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., has accused it of perpetuating "a culture of dishonesty."

"The tragedy is: We know the trajectory of symptoms. But what does the VA do? They purposely misdiagnose so they don't have to deal with it. Or they hide the statistic or downgrade the symptoms," Filner said. Laurie Tranter, spokeswoman for the VA in Washington, D.C., counters: "We process and fully adjudicate each claim and determine if that claim is service connected under the requirements of the law."