Decorated Ex-Marine Suicide Counsellor Kills Himself

On March 31, a former Marine corporal, who had lobbied for veterans on Capitol Hill, counselled depressed soldiers contemplating suicide, and been awarded the Purple Heart, killed himself.    Clay Hunt was twenty-eight years old. 

Many Americans feel little if any remorse, guilt or shame at the fact that our escapades in Iraq and Afghanistan have  killed nearly as many civilian women and children as the Rwandan Genocide.   But surely they must care  about our own nation's losses.  In addition to U.S. soldiers killed and injured in combat, the suicide rate of those who do return home, suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome has reached alarming levels.  Nearly one in every eight soldiers returning home from these  conflicts overseas, suffers from this psychologically debilitiating disorder.  Maybe one reason is that soldiers, after seeing the faces of the dead,  cannot wrap themselves in the abstractions and euphemisms that Democrats and Republicans alike use, such as when they call the deaths of children killed by our bombs and drones  "collateral damage."