That’s the startling opener to Alex Limkin’s column “Flashes of Light,” which is all about staying alive after war.
Limkin, an Iraq War veteran, took a trip with Outward Bound. The wilderness organization leads vets through the backcountry for free. It’s part of an effort to help people cope with post-traumatic stress.
An average of 18 veterans commit suicide each day. The source for this statistic is not some obscure group with an anti-war agenda but an organization that probably knows something about the rate at which veterans are killing themselves—the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
