Press Conference on Military Suicides Cancelled

Ignoring it won't make it go away:

While President George W. Bush, his war cabinet and their
consultants are making the rounds this week in their current Iraq war
anniversary blitz, pushing their message on the benefits of the
conflict, a long-awaited media briefing by the army on the cost part
was cancelled.
[...]
To date, the Army reports 23 OIF soldiers killed themselves in Iraq and
Kuwait in 2003, well above normal Army rates. That number rose very
recently because two of five "non-combat" deaths that were under
investigation have now been classified as suicides. Then there are the
soldiers who have killed themselves back in the United States. That
number was six -- until last weekend.. Last Sunday, in Monument, Colo.,
a 36-year-old Special Forces soldier named William Howell, just three
weeks back from Iraq, shot himself in the head. There had been a
disturbance; a phone call to the police by his wife. When police
arrived at their home, Howell was following his wife around the front
yard waving a handgun. "He was ordered to drop his weapon by one of the
officers, but instead placed the weapon to his head and pulled the
trigger," according to a statement issued by the El Paso County
Sheriff's office. Police said they had no record suggesting there had
been any kind of domestic disturbance in the Howell household before
William went to Iraq.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2004 at 03:24 PM | Permalink