Another Iraq vet suicide soon followed by his wife

Literally every day now brings a report on a suicide by a veteran of the Iraq War who served multiple tours there and/or suffered from PTSD. In most cases, the stories emerge from small town newspapers, as Editor & Publisher has chronicled for nearly five years. An example on May 18 comes from a much bigger paper, the Houston Chronicle, and probes at length a case that occurred last year. And in this case, the soldier's wife joined him as a suicide the following day. The article by Lindsay Wise on Aron Andersson and Cassy Walton observes that when the former "killed himself on Mar. 6, 2007, he became one of at least 16 Army recruiters to commit suicide nationwide since 2000. Five of those suicides occurred in Texas, including three at the Houston Recruiting Battalion, where Andersson worked after serving two tours of duty in Iraq. "Roughly one in five US troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan reports symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, but only slightly more than half have sought treatment, according to a recently published Rand Corp. study. Of those who did seek care, only about half received minimally adequate treatment, the study found. "Amid increasing concerns about failure to screen, diagnose and treat soldiers with mental health problems adequately, Andersson's story raises questions about the pressures faced by the growing number of veterans who return from multiple combat deployments to high-stress recruiting assignments back home." The article talks about the soldier's experience in Iraq and return home: "The only thing the father knew for sure was that his son had changed. He was more frustrated, less patient and harder to talk to. 'Did he come back different? Yeah,' Bob Andersson said. 'I don't think there's anybody who goes over there and fights on the front lines who ever comes back the same.' "The soldier once told his father about working a barricade in Iraq when a white van barreled toward US troops, ignoring warning shots and orders to stop. 'It was definitely a suicide mission, and he said this van full of people came in and they had to, quote, light it up,' Bob Andersson said. 'And he said there were children in there and everything. I could tell that really, really, bothered him.'"