TNR: An American Suicide

An American Suicide
by John B. Judis
What the war did to Jeffrey Lucey

Excerpt:

On July 26, the parents of Jeffrey Lucey, an Iraq vet who committed suicide, filed suit in Massachusetts against the Department of Veterans Affairs for “wrongful death” and “medical malpractice.” The Luceys could win their case. In April 2007, the VA’s Inspector General concluded that the VA Medical Center in Leeds had made mistakes in dealing with Jeffrey Lucey. But the questions about this case go beyond the already well-documented incompetence of the Veterans Administration. They involve the effect of the Iraq war on the mental health of American soldiers.

[…]

….In April, Lucey wrote his girlfriend that he had done “immoral” things. “I have done so much immoral shit during the last month that life is never going to seem the same, and all I want is to erase the past month, pretend it didn’t happen.”…
[…]

Read more of this article at The New Republic

John B. Judis is a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace