Just when I thought I had a sliver of good news to report on the environmental front, I’ve discovered that the newspaper offering the precious nugget has been swallowed up, apparently forever. That’s the way with newspapers; here this minute, disappeared the next. Unreliable creatures.

You’ll have to take my world for it. I honestly read that the river has improved. And I was delighted over the good news until I stopped to read the headline on the left- hand side of the front page of the Saturday, January 16th issue of the Chicago Tribune:

The Armed Forces’ suicide total of 301 for 2009 was the worst year since tracking began in 1980.

Below the article, in a three-column spread, was the color photo of Kerrie Ann Mayes-Skuran, of Schaumburg, Illinois, holding the photo of her son, Sumner Cowan, who committed suicide after being medically discharged from the Air Force because of injuries suffered in Iraq. (Brian Cassella/ Tribune Photo)

Reporters are Lisa Black and Stacy St. Clair of the Tribune.

They tell that Michelle Bowman knew her little brother was struggling when he returned home from Iraq. He drank more heavily than usual and refused to talk about the “bad things” he had seen in combat a few hours before with an invisible enemy convinced she would never understand what he could not. No one could understand evil beyond comprehension in the name of peace.

He was probably right. How could we understand how a pilot could sit in a cubicle on a base in front of a computer, connect the proper dots on the screen, and dispatch a Drone to blow up a plane 15,000 feet above, before picking up his three- year old from pre-school, followed by making a date with his pregnant wife for dinner. No muss. No fuss. Routine afternoon at the office.

Not so routine it can be discussed with his wife over a glass of choice wine; yet sleep comes with difficulty, even at 2:30 A.M. Did the pilot blown from the sky with his invisible hand have a little girl waiting for him to come home soon?

When Timothy Bowman, a member of the Illinois National Guard, celebrated Thanksgiving dinner of 2006 with the family, laughing and apparently in good spirits, his sister thought the worst was over, but by the next morning, he had fatally shot himself in his father’s electrical shop, about 120 miles west of Chicago.

The reporters said that often happens with the victim of war’s pressures. He or she relaxes with the weight of the decision made. This week, Michelle’s father, Mike Bowman, traveled to Capital Hill to tell the heartbreaking story of the family’s tragedy.

His speech was at a suicide prevention conference at the Departments of Defense and Veteran Affairs. More daunting is the question of the number of veterans who take their own lives after leaving the military. This week, the Defense Department confirmed 235 suicides from 18 to 29, who left the service, increased 28 percent from 2005 to to 2007.

Kimberly bowman said her son “wanted to do something for his country.

“He was just too tender and too young to deal with the world the way it is in a war.”

There is one sure way to cut down on the suicides: Abolish wars.

Dwight D. Eisenhower had a deep conviction that America should fight only wars in which its industrial superiority guaranteed victory with the minimum loss of lives.

He capped his farewell address with the warning “to guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought by the military-industrial complex.”

How sad that our leaders did not listen. Sad that young men and women were trained to kill, but not to protect their souls from the ravages of the killing.

Ike, An American Hero
By Michael Korda

Lord, that we might see at last. Amen

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