At Home and Invisible

Invisible.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Boone's own 1451st has disappeared--if you listen, read or watch to the High Country media outlets. Yes, the High Country media titans served up the standard coverage of veteran ceremonies and celebrations on Veteran's Day--kudos to the media titans for doing something.

The 1451st went to war and came home--that's it--no issues, no concerns, no nothing. They're back and that's all anyone needs to know.

That's just really hard to believe. Because on a national level, our vets are facing real difficulties. Are we to believe that High Country vets are somehow not facing these very same issues?

Almost 2 million veterans are without health insurance, along with 3.8 million members of their households, a new study finds.

Among the 1.8 million uninsured veterans, 12.7 percent are under 65. In addition, the number of uninsured veterans has increased by 290,000 between 2000 and 2004, according to the report in the Oct. 30 online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.

"The Bush Administration has been sending Americans overseas asking them to fight for their country, and yet, when people come home, they have no guarantee of health care," said study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the advocacy group Physicians for a National Health Program. "The most basic human right of health care is being denied to our veterans, along with other Americans -- and that's a disgrace."

...

(CBS) Some of America's 25 million veterans face their biggest fight when they return home from the battlefield -- when they take on mental illness.

And, a CBS News analysis reveals they lose that battle, and take their own lives, at a clip described by various experts as "stunning" and "alarming," according to Chief Investigative Correspondent Armen Keteyian. One called it a "hidden epidemic."

He says no one had ever counted just how many suicides there are nationwide among those who had served in the military -- until now.

The five-month CBS News probe, based upon a detailed analysis of data obtained from death records from 2004 and 2005, found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 as non-vets.

Full CBS story here.