500,000 PTSD cases? Not even close but half way there.

Report: More Army Troops, Vets Committing Suicide


The following is a transcript of a report by medical editor Marilyn Brooks that first aired May 29, 2008, on WTAE Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.


Disturbing details released by the Pentagon show the number of U.S. Army troops committing suicide is at a 20-year high.


Pentagon reports said 108 soldiers took their own lives in 2007, which was six more than 2006. About a quarter of those deaths occurred in Iraq, too.

But its not just active duty soldiers that are taking their own lives. National Guard and reserve troops are as well.

The need for help in the emerging mental health crisis is high, but the military is short on therapists and must rely on outside help

"We've deployed a million and a half men and women to the global conflicts around the world," said Dr. Mary Davis of the American Psychiatric Society. "Maybe up to 500,000 individuals are going to have mental health issues when they return."

Thousands of private counselors are offering free services to returning troops. They said America's armed forces and veterans need help coping with depression, family, marital and job problems and suicide on a scale not seen since Vietnam.

"We must expand mental health services for both military and dependants for their spouses, for the families," said Dr. Richard Harding of the American Psychiatric Foundation. "It's something we just have to do."

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500,000? Nope, not even close. Try double it. They need to use the data from Vietnam and then increase it to cover the redeployments and then they may come up with the right number. By 1978 a DAV study had already reached 500,000. The numbers went up after the study was published, as they predicted it would. Last year alone, a report came out that there were 148,000 Vietnam veterans seeking help for PTSD in an 18 month window from 2006-2007. In 1986 a report came out that 117,000 Vietnam veterans had committed suicide. Other studies put the number between 150,000 and 200,000. The experts need to start using what we already know so history will not be repeated.