War casts a long shadow, and no more so than when combat veterans return home carrying the heavy burden of physical and psychological wounds. As a result, one of the most urgent issues facing the United States military today is the epidemic of suicide among veterans. According to a 2021 article, since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, 7,057 U.S. military service members have been killed in war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Astoundingly, the number of deaths by suicide of veterans and service members since 9/11 is four times that, as related in a recent study conducted as part of the Costs of War project from Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

The paper estimates the number of suicide deaths at 30,177 and cites multiple factors that contribute to this statistic. Factoring in the inherent risks that war brings (i.e., high exposure to trauma, stress, military culture and training, continued access to guns and the difficulty of ...