Nearly 20 percent of the more than 2 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from mental health conditions, according to a new report.
They amount to more than half of the 712,000 veterans from both wars who have sought medical treatment since leaving military service. Nearly a third of those veterans may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, one of the signature injuries of the conflicts.
Veterans for Common Sense, a nonprofit, nonpartisan activist group for veterans' interests, and health care issues in particular, compiled the statistics from a raft of government reports.
In whittling them down to just the bare data, the group created a grim shorthand for the toll the wars have taken on a generation of young men and women.
TVNL Comment: Just why did we destroy a whole generation of soldiers? These young men and women were sent to kill and be killed to enrich a handful of people. They did NOT protect our freedoms.