Democratic Sen. Jon Tester Wednesday asked the U.S. State Department to put pressure on an international commission and the Canadian government to stem
Listen to the broadcast version of the story.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, especially in the early years, soldiers burned their waste in big, open-air pits.
“A burn pit’s just a big hole in the ground. You push dirt up and just have trash there, and light it on fire and walk away,” says Army veteran Eric Mullins.
Eric Mullins is an Army veteran who served in Iraq in 2003 and again in 2008.
Credit Rebecca Williams/Michigan Radio
Mullins and I met up in Campus Martius Park in Detroit, near where he works.
He served in Iraq in 2003 and again in 2008. On his first tour, he was assigned to burn barrels of human waste.
/
The latest data from Veterans Affairs shows Oklahoma’s veteran suicide rates are ‘significantly higher’ than that of both the national veteran and general population rates, which have both worsened in the past decade.
The data is age-adjusted to ensure that the differences in rates are not due to differences in the ages of the populations being compared.
The Oklahoma veteran suicide rate was 40.6 per 100,000, compared to 32 per 100,000 of veterans nationally. That rate was also significantly higher than Oklahoma s suicide rate of 25.6 per 100,000 or the natonal suicide rate of 18.4 per 100,000.
Firearms were also overwhelmingly the method used in Oklahoma veteran suicide deaths, with 74 percent compared to the national percentage of 51 percent.
Homelessness, Suicide Rates Worsen For Oklahoma Veterans kosu.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kosu.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.