(photo source: http://leblog.exuberance.com/)
This weekend is memorial day weekend in the United States – to honour the veterans who died in the ‘many’ wars that the US has been fighting. The SFGate has a startling article on the spoils of war – particularly the Iraq war. It was disturbing even initially to see all those young lads go out there in the desert killing people – much like first person shooting games. Infact, they had been trained using such games only. The article says that there are a large number of these kids who are mentally disturbed when they come back (naturally !!). The numbers quoted are pretty bad – 1000 people end up attempting suicide every month. And apparently the VA (the government hospital chain for the veterans) is not able to cope with this large influx of psychologically affected patients, in settling their claims etc. This is very sad, and reminds us that, spoils of war are just not on the battlefield, but the scars remain even after.
The failure to support those who remain after ter war is a true tragedy!
http://ravenscawl.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/shed-tear-for-a-soldier/