Opinion Forum

Military Culture and Suicide

August 4th, 2012

By Jan Barry One of America’s biggest hidden tragedies is suicide. When I was growing up in the 1950s, it was a virtually forbidden topic. When I began working as a news reporter in the 1970s, I bumped into a tradition in journalism that suicides were not reported. When a Vietnam veteran in a small […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, culture, Iraq, PTSD, soldiers, statistics, suicide, veterans
Categories: Life, Military, News | Comments (3) | Home

Wall St in Free Fall; Stock Brokers Commit Mass Suicide

July 25th, 2011

By Dan Miller As calmly encouraged by the Obama Administration and hence widely anticipated, the U.S. stock markets crashed today because the obstructionist Republicans again refused to yield in the face of President Obama’s persuasive and bipartisan efforts to bring peace, justice and prosperity to all of humankind. He is flexible; why can’t they be […]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: debt limit, negotiations, satire, stock market, suicide
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (5) | Home

Is Suicide the Answer?

April 14th, 2011

By Tom Carter I’ve been thinking about a column by Robert Samuelson since I read it on Sunday. Given that the government’s annual deficits and total debt are unsustainable and that neither politicians nor the people are willing to do what’s necessary, Samuelson concludes, “Government is suicidal because it breeds expectations that cannot be met.” […]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: budget, debt, deficit, Medicare, politicians, satire, Social Security, suicide
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (2) | Home

The Duty of Dissent

October 11th, 2009

They teach a lot of things at the US Military Academy at West Point, but one thing they don’t teach is the honorable duty of dissent, a vital element in a democracy. I was reminded of that while reading a new book about the latest crop of veterans protesting military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, dissent, Iraq, soldiers, suicide, veterans, West Point
Categories: Military, Politics | Comments (14) | Home

Suicide and Soldiers

February 18th, 2009

The Army says it’s at a loss to explain the latest twist in US war casualty figures — which show that more soldiers killed themselves than died in combat operations. “In January, 24 U.S. soldiers are believed to have committed suicide — seven confirmed cases and 17 more awaiting confirmation. By comparison, last January there […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: soldiers, suicide
Categories: Military, News | Comments (3) | Home

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