HOME OF THE BRAVE Discussion Page: Family of Iraq vet gets settlement after his suicide

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Family of Iraq vet gets settlement after his suicide

U.S. loses wrongful death suit

By Jeff Schogol, Stars and StripesMideast edition, Friday, January 16, 2009

ARLINGTON, Va. — Marine Reserve Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey hanged himself on June 22, 2004, about three weeks after being released as an inpatient from the Northampton Veterans Medical Center in Leeds, Mass.

His parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the U.S. government, claiming the VA initially refused to treat him for post-traumatic stress disorder because they required him to be sober first.

Now they will receive $350,000 under a settlement with the U.S. government that was announced Thursday by Military Families Speak Out, an anti-war group to which they both belong.

Read the rest of the story here.

There is also an article in the Boston Globe.

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Historical Fact

"Of the more than 274,000 officers and men who served in the army during the Spanish-American War and the period of demobilization, 5,462 died in the various theaters of operation and in camps in the a U.S. Only 379 of the deaths were battle casualties, the remainder being attributed to disease and other causes."

Source: Encyclopedia of American History by Richard Morris

In 1898, thousands of soldiers got food poisoning from meat packed by Armour and Company and sold to the Army. There are no figures on how many of the five thousand noncombat deaths were caused by this.

The Oxford Companion to American Military History estimates that between 2 percent and 25 percent of the casualties in America's wars are attributable to friendly fire.