The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are edging up on Vietnam – which lasted eight years and five months – as the longest wars in U.S. history.
But there’s a difference.
In Vietnam we had a draft, and most soldiers served one tour in combat, limited to a year. U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq not only are serving multiple tours of duty, but much longer tours – as long as 18 to 24 months.
Facing repeated deployments with little down time at home, some soldiers and their families are struggling with stress, depression, marital problems, financial woes and alcohol and drug abuse.
And it gets worse from there. An increasingly high number of these active-duty soldiers, upon returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, are taking their own lives.
“Of the more than 30,000 suicides in this country each year, fully 20 percent of them are acts by veterans,” retired Army Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, U.S. secretary of veterans affairs, said recently. “That means on average 18 veterans commit suicide each day.”
In California, suicide rates among 18- to 24-year-old veterans are four times higher than rates of non-veterans of the same age.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger squarely addressed the problem in his January State of the State address.
“Many have served tour after tour after tour and as a result, some have lost homes, spouses, limbs and even their lives,” he said in that speech.
“Too often our soldiers bring back the enemy with them in their heads. We are seeing and hearing all about a lot of post-traumatic stress syndrome. The suicide rate is disturbingly high. I mean, this country cannot continue to live in denial about those things. Those men and women need help.”
California, he noted, has more returning veterans than any other state – about 30,000 a year. So Schwarzenegger acknowledged this state’s special responsibility to them.
He’s setting aside $20 million in one-time special funds to launch “Operation Welcome Home.”
This program seeks to hire 300 combat veterans who will personally connect with each and every returning combat veteran through nine regional centers – at least three times in their first year home – to link them with a full array of services from jobs to health care to education.
He’s also launching a California Veteran Corps of volunteers to help in the transition to civilian life.
Schwarzenegger is right. Even as California struggles through huge budget difficulties, it still owes veterans a proper welcome home.
Their struggles, inextricably tied to two lengthy wars, underscore the need to bring these wars to a close.