Quaker vigil highlights veterans’ plight in US
Mental health issues for veterans in prison have been highlighted in America
American Friends held a silent vigil in April to highlight the suffering of United States army veterans dealing with mental health issues while incarcerated.
Forty people, among them Quakers and veterans, witnessed outside the Airborne and Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Lynn Newsom, co-director of Quaker House, the local organisation which helped organise the vigil, explained its background to the Friend.
She said: ‘Our attention was brought to the sad plight of incarcerated veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury (TBI) by working to help Joshua Eisenhauer.’ Joshua suffers from both conditions, along with depression and anxiety. A veteran who served in Afghanistan, he is serving ten to fifteen years in prison for firing at the emergency services while experiencing a flashback.
According to Quaker House, there are some 700,000 veterans in prison in the United States. The suicide rate among incarcerated veterans is five times that of the general population. Lynn and her colleagues have called for prisons to include veteran status in their intake screening process, as part of a broader move to improve mental healthcare provisions.
