HUFFINGTON
09.01-08.13
COURTESY OF MIKE MCMICHAEL
INVISIBLE CASUALTIES
combat troops afflicted with brain
injury and war trauma. They are
victims of military sexual trauma.
Aging veterans living alone with
deteriorating bodies and minds.
The physically wounded who’ve
become addicted to painkillers, and
people whose lives are temporarily
derailed by the death of a loved one,
illness, job loss, homelessness or
the breakup of a close relationship.
Follow any case of attempted or
completed suicide far back enough
and you will find one missed opportunity after another. Mental
illness remains difficult to recognize, difficult to acknowledge.
Asking for help is hard; many
troops remain convinced that seeing a counselor will damage their
career. There is a national shortage of mental health care providers. Many find it impossible to
sort through the hundreds of programs the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
offer to individuals and families.
Researchers are now looking at
suicide factors that can be detected
long before a crisis — at traumatic brain injury, for instance, the
wound that changed Mike McMichael’s life. Since 2000, a quarter
A family
portrait of the
McMichaels
taken on the
Tar River
while Mike
was on leave
in October
2004.