Wars, economic crisis, lead to suicides

This video from the USA is called 2009 a Record Year for Army Suicides.

An average of 18 US military veterans are taking their lives every day as the Obama administration and the Pentagon grow increasingly defensive about the epidemic of suicides driven by Washington’s wars of aggression: here.

By Robert Skelton in England:

Britain: Tragic suicide highlights plight of young unemployed

28 April 2010

On March 31, Vicky Harrison, a young, bright, popular and talented 21-year-old took her life with a massive overdose of drugs.

Vicky’s desperate act has left her family and friends devastated. Her death has also elicited empathy, sadness and anger amongst many more people, for the circumstances that led to this particular tragedy resonate with hundreds and thousands of young people. In a very real sense, Vicky’s is the story of an entire generation.

Vicky, from Darwin [sic; Darwen], Lancashire, felt she had much to live for when she first left school. Full of ambition and drive, she had achieved three A levels in film and media studies and 10 GCSE’s. She had set her sights in working in the film industry, in production, but after gaining a place at South Bank University in London was disappointed with the course and left after one year.

She wanted to teach, but instead spent months vainly searching for a job, any job.

Her father said, “She had decided university was not for her, but she never expected to struggle so much to find a job. The timing was unlucky because of the recession.”

Vicky had applied for around 200 jobs, and spent much of her time approaching supermarkets and local businesses as well as looking in papers, job centres and the Internet to find work.

The day before she took her own life, Vicky had received yet another letter of rejection from a nursery school where she had applied for work as a teaching assistant. She was due to sign on, yet again, for her £51-a-week Job Seekers’ Allowance the following day. But Vicky could no longer cope with the feeling of rejection and humiliation of joblessness.

In her suicide letters, left for her mother and father and boyfriend, she said “I don’t want to be me anymore.”

Vicky is only one of a generation of young people who are being denied a decent job and, in her case, deprived even of hope for the future.

One million young people between the ages of 18-24 are now out of work. Vicky’s death came the day after unemployment in the UK reached a 16-year high of 2.5 million. There was a staggering 75 percent increase in 18-24 year olds claiming JSA in June 2009.

USA: Veterans With Brain Injuries Still Struggle to Get Help: here.