I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján spotlighted post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at a public forum in Rio Rancho Wednesday, and he is scheduled to meet Thursday with owners of the “Horses for Heroes” PTSD therapy program just north of Santa Fe.
Up to 31 percent of veterans returning from combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have PTSD symptoms, according to a recent study by researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute. Suicide rates among soldiers reached record levels in June, when 33 active-duty and National Guard soldiers took their own lives.
Although suicide rates are associated with PTSD symptoms, the Army officially denies its suicide epidemic is related to combat operations, and has instead blamed skyrocketing rates of reckless driving and drug and alcohol abuse among soldiers.
Army Medical Command documents, including an internal analysis of soldier suicides dated March 2010, refer to a late 2009 Army analysis that had identified combat unit deployments as a significant suicide risk among soldiers. However, that finding was subsequently rejected as a statistical artifact and never announced to the public.
The Rio Rancho forum took place near the state Veteran and Family Support Services program office. The Congressman and officials from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the New Mexico Department of Veterans’ Services, and Veterans and Family Support Services program, theVeteran First Jail Diversion Program, and the University of New Mexico (UNM) Veterans’ Resource Center met with New Mexican veterans and family members.
The Horses for Heroes program is intended to help veterans with PTSD and other anxiety disorders after combat deployments, according to the program website. Most clients have recently returned from Iraq or Afghanistan.
