I get email from the Dept. of Defense, the press releases bearing the names of men and women who die at the wars.  And I have lists I check for the Coalition forces who have died–from such a diverse list of countries that it boggles the mind.

But as an email in this morning’s mailbox reminded me, there are names I do not have and may never find.  Since the beginning of the war more than a thousand military individuals have taken their own lives by suicide.  I have a few such names, if they die “in theater” the names come on those DOD releases although I can only recall one case clearly stating it was suicide.  But many die after separation from service, and even those still in the service do not appear on a list I can access.

Doubtless this will get me accused of being a bleeding heart (better a bleeding heart than no heart at all!), but I consider those troops killed by the wars as surely as if an enemy bullet pierced their hearts.  I’d like to have those names.  I occasionally find one in a newspaper I randomly run across.  Or on a blog somewhere in the vast internet universe.

At least 128 military members killed themselves this past year, forty-one of those were Marines.  The estimates the  Veterans’ Administration deals with boggle the mind: estimates 18 veterans a day – or 6,500 a year – take their own lives, but that number includes veterans from all previous wars.  Somewhere, a man is dying  by his own hand every 80 minutes!  A hidden cost to war, this is a bleeding wound that goes on and on without being noticed by most of the country.

Tell your friends, pass the word….send me the names and tell me when they served in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The stories of the suicides, the names now lost in the Night deserve to be told in the cold light of day.

My email is labrys6 at gmail.com.  Send me the names, please. I’ll string new counting beads for them alone.  And the salt of lost tears could make a crystal’d snowflake of memory.

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