Mullen: Suicides, homelessness trends a concern

[unhappycamper]

Mullen: Suicides, homelessness trends a concern
By Robert Burns - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Apr 2, 2009 16:28:24 EDT

NEW YORK — Homelessness, family strains and psychological problems among returning veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will persist in the U.S. for generations to come, the top U.S. military officer said Thursday.

“This is not a 10-year problem. It is a 50- or 60- or 70-year problem,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a lunchtime audience at the Hudson Union Society, a group that promotes nonpartisan debate.

Mullen said he was particularly disturbed by the emergence of homelessness as a problem among war veterans.

“I have started to meet with, in veterans hospitals, homeless veterans” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. “And they are every bit as homeless and every bit as tragic as any homeless vet we’ve ever had. We as a country should not allow that to happen.”

At a White House news conference last week, President Barack Obama said that some of the funding increases in his proposed budget for veterans affairs are directed at alleviating the problem of homelessness among veterans, which he said is a bigger problem, proportionally, than is homelessness in the rest of the American population.


Rest of article at: http://navytimes.com/news/2009/04/ap_mullen_vets_040209/%2e