Veterans Put On Skull Masks, March to Expose Epidemic of VA Abuse and Veteran Suicide
By Matt Agorist
ActivistPost.com
JULY 2, 2018
New Orleans, LA — Veterans from all over the United States gathered in front of the New Orleans VA hospital Sunday morning for a march to raise awareness for the epidemic of veteran suicides currently gripping the nation.
It is no secret that the leading cause of death among active duty troops deployed to the Middle East is not combat or accidents, or IEDs — it’s themselves. The Pentagon’s own statistics show that this is a crisis but it is being ignored.
In 2016, the Pentagon examined the numbers, noting that a total of 55 US troops, in both hostile and non-hostile situations, lost their lives in foreign occupations. The number of soldiers who killed themselves was nearly 5 times that amount.
Not only are active duty soldiers tragically ending their own lives at an increasing rate, but once they finish their service, these numbers skyrocket. While the suicide rate for active duty members is certainly shocking, veterans kill themselves at a rate nearly 200 percent more.
The most recent data shows that a veteran kills himself or herself in the United States about every 65 minutes. That is 8,000 veterans a year.
If we look at attempted suicides, that number skyrockets once more to 19,000 attempts, of which 8,000 result in ending their own lives.
One of these attempted suicides was Air Force veteran John Michael Watts, 58, who approached the Georgia Capitol in downtown Atlanta around 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday and within minutes, he was engulfed in flames that burned 90 percent of his body.
Watts set himself on fire in an attempted suicide to raise awareness to the problems within the VA.
“These findings are deeply concerning, which is why I made suicide prevention my top clinical priority,” said VA Secretary Dr. David J. Shulkin last year. “I am committed to reducing Veteran suicides through support and education. We know that of the 20 suicides a day that we reported last year, 14 are not under VA care. This is a national public health issue that requires a concerted, national approach.”
Indeed, this problem is concerning, but the VA is not posing any real solutions, which is why this group of veterans came together on Sunday, put on skull masks to humanize the dead, and marched to the 2018 Libertarian Convention.
The “March of the Dead” was an event organized by activist and veteran of the USMC, Adam Kokesh.
“I’ve had a few friends and a number of vets I’ve known commit suicide. I’ve dealt with PTSD myself and turned down a big bag of pharmaceuticals from the VA,” Kokesh told News2Share as the reason for organizing the march. “But for me, the motivation is all the guys I see struggling who I know would be better off with freedom to seek treatment without the drug war in the way. Twenty veterans will commit suicide today. How many wouldn’t with proper treatment?”
The Rest…HERE
