The Other Victims of Battlefield Stress; Defense Contractors’ Mental Health Neglected – ProPublica

The Other Victims of Battlefield Stress; Defense Contractors’ Mental Health Neglected – ProPublica.

Wade Dill does not figure into the toll of war dead. An exterminator, Dill took a job in Iraq for a company contracted to do pest control on military bases. There, he found himself killing disease-carrying flies and rabid dogs, dodging mortars and huddling in bomb shelters.

Dill, a Marine Corps veteran, was a different man when he came back for visits here, his family said: moody, isolated, morose. He screamed at his wife and daughter. His weight dropped. Dark circles haunted his dark brown eyes.

Three weeks after he returned home for good, Dill booked a room in an anonymous three-story motel alongside Interstate 5. There, on July 16, 2006, he shot himself in the head with a 9 mm handgun. He left a suicide note for his wife and a picture for his daughter, then 16. The caption read: “I did exist and I loved you.”

We need to estimate the true cost of this war. This is getting ridiculous. Our society is dying, and we are putting all of our resources in making our pain, and the pain of others even worse. God help us.

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