Exceptionally sad. Greg Mitchell reports about the deaths of Travis Twigg, 36, who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1993, and his brother Willard, 38.

The epidemic of suicides among veterans of the Iraq war with PTSD continues. The latest that has surfaced involves a decorated vet who wrote about his PTSD for the Marine Corps Gazette– and this week killed himself and his brother after a long police chase in Arizona.

Police have discovered no motive for the killings, nor why the brothers earlier in the week may have planned to commit suicide by driving into the Grand Canyon — Thelma and Louise style.

Staff Sgt. Travis Twiggs, 36, who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1993 and held the combat action ribbon — and met President Bush a few weeks ago — wrote a lengthy article in the January issue of the Marine Corps Gazette detailing his efforts to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. Tom Ricks, The Washington Post military reporter, recalls in an online piece today, that he carried excerpts from that piece early this year.

Twiggs loved his country so much he named a daughter America, The Arizona Republic reports today.

His brother was Willard J. Twiggs, age 38.

“All this violent behavior, him killing his brother, that was not my husband. If the PTSD would have been handled in a correct manner, none of this would have happened,” Kellee Twiggs, the wife of Staff Sgt. Travis Twiggs, said. She said he began changing after his second tour of duty in Iraq, and worsened after he returned from his third stint there, when he lost two good friends from his platoon.
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Senator Jim Webb of Virginia is the proponent of expanded veteran’s benefits, which have drastically declined in actual value since World War II. Webb’s proposed legislation would pay for the benefits by increasing income tax only on households with incomes in excess of $1 million annually.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his allies have introduced their own version of the bill, which would reserve the most generous benefits for those who have served at least 12 years. Webb pointed out that it would exclude the vast majority of service members:

Seventy to 75 percent of the ground troops in the Army and the Marine Corps have left the service by the end of their first enlistment. And those are the people who are not being taken care of. … They are not getting an opportunity for the first-class education they deserve.

As Webb pointed out, conservatives need to match their rhetoric on supporting the troops with their actions.

Think Progress: Webb: Bush Would Be First President In History To Veto Benefits For Vets

We hold police officers to high standards of conduct – not least being truthful about bad outcomes that arise from their work. Part of the bargain ought to be that, in return, the government be equally frank towards police officers – and a high level of care in training and equipping them.

As a citizen, I think it’s difficult to demand high standards of conduct from the police when their employer – the City – treats them shabbily.

When Officer John M. Kelly crashed his police car during a chase on Staten Island in 2000, thousands of officers attended his funeral, where Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani declared: “John Kelly is a hero. Nobody can take that away.”

Officer Kelly’s wife, Patricia M. Kelly, a police officer herself before retiring in 2000, has been trying for years to show that her husband’s supervisors knowingly sent him on patrol in an unsuitable car, something the department denies.

city lawyers have argued that Officer Kelly caused his own death

Her lawyers have obtained documents showing that highway officers had reported steering problems in the model and a similar one.

In stark contrast to the mayor’s words at the funeral, city lawyers have argued that Officer Kelly caused his own death by driving recklessly and failing to use his seat belt. After years of litigation, Ms. Kelly has been denied in her efforts to question all the officers who had evaluated the cars.

Officer John Kelly patrolled the north shore of Staten Island for an auto larceny unit. He won high marks for his driving skills, vehicle maintenance, career potential and general demeanor.

“Officer Kelly reserves his action until he has assessed the situation completely,” his supervisors wrote in a year-end review for 1999. “He considers all aspects and develops a sound judgment of the situation.”

Still, there was friction between the extended family and the department. Mrs. Kelly’s sister, Virginia Duffy, joined a broad federal lawsuit accusing the department of sexual harassment and retaliation. The city eventually settled those claims for about $1.85 million awarded to six current or former officers.

On the afternoon of July 17, 2000, Officer John Kelly was assigned to patrol for traffic offenders. Alone in his car, an unmarked 1999 Chevy Lumina, he called in the license plate of a passing motorcycle, learned it had been stolen and gave chase. On Gulf Avenue in the Bloomfield section, he veered into a utility pole. Officer Kelly, 31, was pronounced dead within hours.

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Noah Schachtman at Danger Room posts on a piece to be broadcast on CBS this evening.

Schachtman quotes from  tonight’s CBS report:

Veterans aged 20-24, who are those most likely to have served during the War on Terror, are killing themselves when they return home at rates estimated to be between 2.5 and almost 4 times higher than non-vets in the same age group. (22.9 to 31.9 per 100,000 people as compared to just 8.3 per 100,000 for non-vets).

* Overall, those who have served in the military were more than twice as likely to take their own life in 2005, than Americans who never served. (18.7-20.8 per 100,000 as compared to 8.9 per 100,000).

…

The CBS News Investigative Unit, led by producer Pia Malbran, contacted all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for vets and non-vets dating back to 1995. Beyond the first-ever collection of raw nationwide numbers, Dr. Steve Rathbun, the acting head of the biostatistics department at the University of Georgia, did a detailed analysis of the numbers provided by state authorities for 2004 and 2005.

…Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America: “Not everyone comes home from the war wounded, but the bottom line is nobody comes home unchanged.”

Link to CBS Report.

Link to “120 Veteran Suicides a Week,” on Danger Room.

Writing in The Nation, Joshua Kors describes the Pentagon’s new way to save money. While we have been spending approx. $100 Billion per year on the war in Iraq, including the $Billions in unmarked bills that disappear from suitcases and satchels on the streets of Baghdad, click here and here we are saving about $1 billion per year — about one per cent — with an accounting move that Ken Lay and Andy Fastow (click here) would be proud to call their own.

Take an injured vet like Jon Town. Classify his injury as the result of a “pre-existing condition” and poof: he gets a Purple Heart but gets no Veteran’s Benefits. And remember that signing bonus? The bonus is contingent on serving full term. If you’re wounded and discharged half-way through your tour — kiss half the bonus goodbye. This is the “Enron-esque” beauty of Regulation 635-200, Chapter 5-13: “Separation Because of Personality Disorder.”

Several of Town’s fellow soldiers in 2-17 Field Artillery, including Michael Forbus, could have testified to his stability and award-winning performance before the October 2004 rocket attack. As Forbus puts it, before the attack, Town was “one of the best in our unit;” after, “the son of a gun was deaf in one ear. He seemed lost and disoriented. It just took the life out of him.”

Here are some numbers: According to The Nation . In the last six years the Army has diagnosed and discharged more than 5,600 soldiers because of personality disorder. And the numbers keep rising:

• 2001: 805 Cases
• 2003: 980 Cases
• 2006: 1,086 Cases from January to November.

“It’s getting worse and worse every day,” says the official who handles discharge papers. “At my office the numbers started out normal. Now it’s up to three or four soldiers each day. It’s like, suddenly everybody has a personality disorder.”

Is this what America stands for?

Is this what President Bush means by “compassionate conservatism?”

Is this what George W. Bush, the candidate, meant when he promised to restore honor and dignity to the Office of the President?

Not according to Bobby Muller at Veterans for America.