Soldier suicides are also casualties of war

President Barack Obama just announced a reversal of a long-standing policy that denied presidential condolence letters to the family members of soldiers who commit suicide. Relatives of soldiers killed in action receive letters from the president. Official silence, however, has long stigmatised those who die of self-inflicted wounds. The change marks a long-overdue shift in the recognition of the epidemic of soldier and veteran suicides in this country and the toll of the hidden wounds of war.

The denial of condolence letters was brought to national prominence when Gregg and Jannett Keesling spoke about the suicide of their son, Chancellor Keesling. Chance Keesling joined the army in 2003. After active duty in Iraq, he moved to the army reserves, and was called back for a second deployment in April 2009. The years of war had taken a toll on the 25-year-old. As his father, Gregg, told me: "He was trained for the rebuilding of Iraq. He was a combat engineer. He operated big equipment and loved to run the big equipment. Finally, he was retrained as a tactical gunner sitting on top of a Humvee. Because there was really very little rebuilding going on."

When Chance came home, he sought mental-health treatment from Veterans Affairs. His marriage had failed, and he knew he needed to heal. He turned down the army's offer of a $27,000 bonus to redeploy. Ultimately, he was sent back to Iraq anyway. Two months after being redeployed there, Chance took his gun into a latrine and shot himself. The Pentagon reported his death due to "a non-combat related incident." Adding insult to the injury, the VA, five months after his death, sent Chance a letter that his parents received, asking him to complete his "post deployment adjustment."