the other day i was listening to npr in my car (lil' pi is her name)

my car's name that is

anyway, i don't know if it was a local show or national. a man was taking phone calls from people about memorial day. a woman called in and was greatful to all those who had served prior and were serving now. she mentioned her husband had served in iraq. she kept on talking and the more she talked, the more broken up she became. she was crying but continued to talk. finally, the host asked if her husband was killed. she said, no, he wasn't killed but the man who came back was SO different, he really wasn't her husband. my heart, hearing the pain in her voice, was ripping apart

The casualties continue to mount after they come home ...

Posted by Guest Blogger

Penny Coleman: It is only recently that I have come to think of myself as a war widow.


A rose for their graves ...
David Fickel, a 25-year-old Minnesotan honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after serving in Iraq, used a shotgun to take his own life on Memorial Day, 2006
Linda Michel, a 33-year-old Navy medic from Albany, who served at a U.S.-run prison near Baghdad, returned to her husband and three children last October and, two weeks later, shot and killed herself
Jonathan Schulze, a 25-year-old from New Prague, MN, asked to be admitted to a VA hospital on January 11 because he was thinking of killing himself. Told he was No. 26 on the waiting list, he hung himself at his parents' farm, leaving behind his pregnant wife and a young daughter
Michael Bramer, a 23-year-old from Boston who had served with the Army's 82d Airborne Division, turned up the surround sound on his television on January 17 and took his own life
Jessica Rich, a 24-year-old Army Reservist and mother of a 7-year-old son, despaired of leaving behind her nightmares and flashbacks of Iraq. On February 8, she drove her car into oncoming traffic on I-25 outside of Denver and died
Chris Dana, a 23-year-old Iraq war veteran from Helena who friends said wore his uniform and boots for weeks at a time, even to sleep, shut himself in his bedroom in March, put a blanket over his head, and shot himself
It is only recently that I have come to think of myself as a war widow. When my husband Daniel came home from Vietnam in 1970, the relationship between combat-related stress and suicide was officially unrecognized. When Daniel took his own life, it never occurred to me to blame the war. I thought that if only I had been kinder, more patient, more vigilant, I might have prevented his death. The shame and guilt on top of my grief were a terrible burden. It was decades before I could find some compassion and forgiveness for that young woman who had no idea what she was up against. .................