"Since the start of the Afghan war in 2001... the base has also lost at least 75 of its soldiers to suicide."

Fort Hood in Texas, the scene of a horrific event earlier today, has had its share of tragedies.

The base's former commander, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, used his tenure at the helm of the sprawling post to mount a broad campaign to reduce the incidence of PTSD and suicide among the soldiers on the post.

At Gen. Lynch's direction, the base constructed a new Resiliency Campus spread out over a series of buildings near the base's chapel. The new facilities include a Spiritual Fitness Center for soldiers to meditate, rest and think, and a Cognitive Enhancement Assistance Center that offers counseling and other life-planning services.

The base also houses the Army's Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program, which aims to help soldiers deal with stress and the return to peacetime life.

Despite the efforts, however, Fort Hood continues to be hit hard by suicide, PTSD and other related problems. Through October, 10 Fort Hood soldiers had taken their lives in 2009, the second-highest tally in the Army behind Kentucky's Fort Campbell, which had 16 suicides.

If you are a believer in Christ, please pray for the families of those who were killed, for those who were wounded, and for the alleged shooter and his family as well. It is a Christian's duty to do this.

the mental cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars

An increasing number of soldiers are returning to military bases and their homes with psychological problems.

More than 3,000 of the 15,000 troops returning home, [Dr. Bret Logan, deputy commander for managed care at Fort Campbell], estimated, probably will experience headaches, sleep disorders, irritability, memory loss, relationship strains or other symptoms linked to stress disorder. Medical staff at Fort Campbell say they also worry that there will be a new surge of suicides — an escalating problem in recent years, largely related to the stresses of war. Jon Soltz, an Iraq war veteran and chairman of VoteVets.org, said more soldiers will have stress-related problems, and the military must be vigilant in diagnosing and treating post-traumatic stress disorder to head off more serious issues.

send them to Iraq

In his highly praised documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore is shown chasing several people in Congress and asking them if they were sending their children into the military to serve in Iraq. I wonder what he thinks about Sarah Palin sending out her son.

"There are some soldiers who will do almost anything not to go back."

Soldiers are injuring themselves so they don't return to combat zones.

As an internist at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr. Stephanie Santos is used to finding odd things in people's stomachs. So last spring when a young man, identifying himself as an Iraq-bound soldier, said he had accidentally swallowed a pen at the bus station, she believed him. That is, until she found a second pen. It read 1-800-GREYHOUND. Last summer, according to published reports, a 20-year-old Bronx soldier paid a hit man $500 to shoot him in the knee on the day he was scheduled to return to Iraq. The year before that, a 24-year-old specialist from Washington state escaped a second tour of duty, according to his sister, by strapping on a backpack full of tools and leaping off the roof of his house, injuring his spine.

It's very catch-22.

suicide among male veterans

Here's the conclusion of a study about the risk of suicide among male veterans:

Veterans in the general US population, whether or not they are affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), are at an increased risk of suicide. With a projected rise in the incidence of functional impairment and psychiatric morbidity among veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, clinical and community interventions that are directed towards patients in both VA and non-VA healthcare facilities are needed.

I guess this is another part of President Bush's legacy.