Rachel talks with IAVA director Paul Rieckhoff about the need to push for adequate veterans’ benefits. Recent reports have highlighted the alarmingly high suicide statistics amongst active duty military personnel and I have reported in the past that one in four homeless once served their country.
Salon has a moving series of articles entitled Coming Home telling the stories of different soldiers some suicidal some homicidal.
The day before Halloween 2008, Army Pvt. Adam Lieberman swallowed handfuls of prescription pain pills and psychotropic drugs. Then he picked up a can of black paint and smeared onto the wall of his room in the Fort Carson barracks what he thought would be his last words to the world.
“I FACED THE ENEMY AND LIVED!” Lieberman painted on the wall in big, black letters. “IT WAS THE DEATH DEALERS THAT TOOK MY LIFE!”
Rieckhoff asks for the American people to please contact their representatives and insist they fund the Veterans Administration and provide mental health services to the men and women that have sacrificed so much.
