CBS Veteran Suicide Numbers Bogus?
By Warner Todd Huston November 27, 2007 - 07:44 ET
On the CBS "Early Show" on Nov. 13th, co-host Julie Chen claimed that there was "an alarming suicide rate among veterans" of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts. CBS then aired a report that went on to claim that the suicide rate for our troops had wildly climbed. Fellow NewsBuster Kyle Drennen had his doubts about the report when the show originally aired and now comes an editorial by oftentime military reporter Michael Fumento further casting large amounts of skepticism on the CBS report.
The CBS show specifically wanted to make it seem like Iraq war vets are the ones that have seen these outrageously rising suicide rates. Reporter Armen Keteyian included in his report this opener:
Staff Sergeant Justin Reyes spent a violent year serving in Iraq...Medical records show Justin suffered severe psychological trauma after witnessing "multiple dead" and having to "sort through badly mutilated bodies." Earlier this year, one month after separating from the Army, Justin hanged himself with a cord in his apartment, at just 26...families recently sat down to talk about losing loved ones, all veterans of Iraq, to suicide...Mia Sagahon's boyfriend, Walter, shot himself at age 27 about a year and a half after he came back from Iraq.
Clearly CBS is pinning these so-called high numbers on the war on terror.
go here if you feel you really need to
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-
huston/2007/11/27/cbs-veteran-suicide-numbers-bogus
Every morning and throughout the day I catch up on the links I'm sent. I buzz through everything, keeping what I need to go back to in order to read thoroughly. I'm not even a quarter of the way through them but my blood pressure is at a boiling point already!
Ever since CBS did the report on military suicides, they have been attacked for reporting it. Enough already. It was supported by the VA!
VHA population specific epidemiologic factors, it is estimated that there are up to 1,000 suicides per year among veterans receiving care within VHA and as many as 5,000 per year among all living veterans.
STATEMENT OF
JAN KEMP, RN, PHD
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR EDUCATION, VISN 19
MENTAL ILLNESS RESEARCH EDUCATION AND CLINICAL
CENTER
DEPT
OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
What fails to cause the same kind of anger is that the CBS report, although much needed, is in fact underestimating the numbers. They did not take into account the DOD figures are different.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest number since the 102 suicides in 1991 at the time of the Persian Gulf War.
Washington Post
August 16, 2007
There were also 948 of what the report terms "serious attempts at suicide"
While the vast majority of the "completed suicides" in 2006 involved males, 10 of the victims were females, the report said. Seventy percent of the Soldiers were under 25, 98 percent were enlisted and 91 percent were from the regular Army. And while the suicide methods included drug overdoses, strangulation and poisoning, the vast majority - 71 percent - involved firearms.
Army Military News
August 16, 2007
These anti-facts bloggers would know all of this if they ever bothered to take any of this seriously! I've been tracking it since the beginning! I used to post on the AOL message boards until I knew I was just wasting my time. There were too many on their who lacked the capacity to open their minds. I was operating a blog on AOL at the same time. I abandoned that blog and started with Blog Spot two years ago. If you want to learn more you are welcome to do searches. There are almost 9,000 posts over at Screaming In An Empty Room. Click the link to the right side of this blog.
The point is that while CBS brought attention to this, they did not create the facts! This escapes the deniers so hell bent on shooting down the report they will post all across the country attacking it instead of trying to be part of the solution.
I get emails from families who have lost someone because of suicide and because of this wound. I get emails from veterans wondering what's wrong with this country and pleading with me to offer them some hope. I've plastered videos all over Google and YouTube. Everything taken from news reports and actual, factual studies on PTSD. I'm so fed up with some people in this country that their agenda is a declaration of war against our veterans. That's right! War on our veterans because as they seek to minimize the outcome of two occupations, instead of finding the same kind of outrage they are suffering, they in effect have declared veterans as the enemy!
To these bloggers I have only one thing to say, use the same energy to solve problems or get the hell out of the way and find something else to attack. Stop attacking them!
For the last 25 years, this has been my life. For the last three years, it has consumed my days because there are too many veterans in the same place my husband was and still is in and too many families just like mine. Now, finally the media has taken this seriously, which will end up working to end the stigma of this wound, end the silence of those suffering and get them into the healing help they would not need if we did not send them to risk their lives. It will bring information to the families of the troops coming home so they know what to look for to know if their soldier needs help or just time to recover from what they went through.
If the deniers want to see the numbers of the suicides rise the way they did after Vietnam, then have fun attacking truth. You can answer to God when you get there and He asks you why you were part of the reason so many took their own lives. You can answer to Him as to why you didn't help when you had the opportunity.
P.S. Send your hate mail as always to the below link unless you've already been blocked because you've been too nasty in the past.
Kathie Costos
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington
Hi Kathie,
ReplyDeleteI've been getting emails about responding to the fallout as well, and even without those have been working on a piece that has, well, been in pieces all month because my time factor with finals and all else is not being cooperative.
I've bookmarked your comments, and will most likely add some as well to my post when it finally goes up.
It's time we stop fighting the data, and start fighting for our troops, I say.
I am so tired of people trying to dismiss facts when lives are on the line. Good Lord! Whatever makes people think they have anything wothy to add to society by attacking wounded veterans is beyond reason.
ReplyDeleteI can't understand what is in people that they can be this infected with pure hatred willing use anything they can to prove something. They only prove to me they have no connection to humanity at all.
It is one thing to attack political figures or someone on the other side of an issue. But to attack our wounded veterans and soldiers is just sick.