These are the wages of war.  No, that’s not the number of soldiers killed in battle.  That is 293 for 2012.  No, that’s not civilian deaths.  That’s around 50 for 2012.  Though the U.S. has conveniently classified pretty much every male death as non-civilian.  That 6,500 number is the number of suicide attempts every year by U.S. veterans.  18 a day.

We have failed our soldiers so completely.  Words fail.  When words fail, I swear.  Fuck you, George W. Bush for the unnecessary wars you got us into.  Fuck you, Dick Cheney for your endless cheerleading into war.  Fuck you, Donald Rumsfeld and your whole flock of chicken hawks that pushed the wars.  Fuck you, all you congressmen who voted for war.  Fuck you, Barack Obama for not ending the wars sooner.  And a final fuck you to every single politician who has sat idly by for years without doing anything to address the suicide attempts that are occurring every 90 seconds.

Yes, wars are sometimes necessary, but there is a subset of U.S. culture that thinks war is one of the first choices instead of the last choice.  And those people are in power.  And we put them there.  So fuck all of us, too.