Memorial Day, when America honors the sacrifice of members of the military who have lost their lives in the service of their country, is also a time to remember those who have died of suicide as a result of the spiritual, mental, and emotional wounds they brought home, John Byrnes, a strategic director for Concerned Veterans for America, told Newsmax, Sunday. 

Byrnes, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, said on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America Weekend” that he fought in the global war on terror, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he lost friends, and that he also was on hand at ground zero in New York City the day of the 9/11 attack. 

But he said that one of the most disturbing things he’s learned about combat service in the last two decades has been that “we’ve lost more folks back home” to suicide.

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