The son of the head of the group Veterans for Peace, Specalist Shuan Manuel returned from Iraq and learned that new-born son had died of a rare genetic disease. Manuel said the situation was made even more painful when his superiors ordered him to begin training for a second tour in Iraq. When he buried himself in alcohol, Manuel withdrew and missed duties on base. Rather than get him treatment, the military expelled Shaun Manuel denying him benefits he needs to get his life straight again.

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32 year old Indiana National Guardsman Gerald Cassidy died at Fort Knox five months after returning from Iraq with brain damage from a roadside bomb. An autopsy found he had been dead for hours when he was found and may have been unconscious for days. His mother, Kay McMullen told me her son had received inconsistent care since returning from Iraq, and that he had often been left in lines waiting to see doctors and would forget whether he took his medications due to memory problems.

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On February 20, 2007, Sergant Brian Jason Rand shot himself under the Cumberland River Centre Pavilion in Clarksville outside Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Rand had just returned from a second tour to Iraq, and had filled out a post-deployment health assessment form, admitting to combat-related nightmares, depression and mood swings. But he never received any help with the demons that lead to his death.

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James Eggemeyer returned from a tour in Iraq with a bad back and severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But he couldn’t hold a job and his claim for disability benefits got caught stuck in the Veterans Administration bureaucracy. So James had to move into his car, becoming one of the estimated 200,000 vets the government estimates sleep in a in a doorway, alley, car or box in our cities and rural communities.

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