Nation turns its back on veterans

Veterans make up less than 9 percent of the U.S. population, yet they account for 18 percent of the nation’s suicides.

It’s true. On average, 20 veterans a day take their own lives, according to a Veterans Administration study released in July. Among the many who do not kill themselves, poisoning inflicted by their own government via Agent Orange is making good health impossible for thousands. Without good health, what does anybody really have? What level of happiness is even possible?

We connect suicide and sickness on Veterans Day because we believe our country talks a far better game than it plays when it comes to taking care of those who risked everything for us.

No amount of talk, however, could drown out the gunshot last Sunday when a veteran shot himself to death at Real Life Ministries. Whether he meant to or not, suicide — often hidden behind veils of shame or ignorance — was thrust into a very public spotlight when he pulled the trigger that ended his life.

Then on Wednesday, Dick Phenneger of the local organization Veterans Services Transparency, Inc., led a compelling and disheartening presentation at North Idaho College about the effects unleashed on the innocent by Agent Orange. For several years, Phenneger has been waging his own war toward recognition and accountability of the pesticide’s impact on Vietnam-era soldiers and civilians. It’s a fact of life — and death — that our own government refuses to accept responsibility for the physical and mental anguish it has caused not just to our soldiers, but in many cases, to their progeny through birth defects.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, birth defects are found in one of every 33 babies born in the U.S. each year. That’s about 3 percent. But when Phenneger surveyed 119 Vietnam veterans from Kootenai County, 20 percent reported they had children with birth defects. That’s too small a sample size for a national conclusion, but it’s alarming nonetheless.

This is beyond shameful. It’s unforgivable, and amends must be made.

We call upon members of the Idaho congressional delegation to work with the new administration in 2017 and chart a far better future for our servicemen and servicewomen. Lip service be damned. It’s imperative that we apply real and meaningful change to the essential services our military so desperately need and deserve as they struggle with PTSD, homelessness, unemployment and underemployment, sickness and premature death.

Leaving them without the resources they’ve earned is more than a national disgrace. It’s cowardice bordering on treason.