Military suicides "systemic and growing"

During a conference call last night with Point Man Ministries we were talking about what history has to teach us. When Vietnam veterans came home, the numbers of veterans afflicted with PTSD kept going up. Along with those numbers came increases in suicides, divorces and incarcerations. Vietnam veterans should have been a lesson in what needed to be done but today, even as things are better for our veterans, the DOD has not learned from this history.

Telling young men and women they need to "train their brains" or become "mentally tough" is ridiculous and dangerous. Too many of them walk away believing if they end up with PTSD, they didn't train their brains right or were just too weak to take it. If the DOD really wants to stop the suicides, they should take a look at the history of everything they have gotten wrong in the last ten years and stop repeating them!

A war on military suicides
By Juliette Kayyem
Published 09:35 p.m., Monday, October 31, 2011

The Pentagon's efforts to acknowledge and address the problem of military suicides have been successful, by most accounts. Outreach, prevention programs and increased mental health services have likely saved lives. But when Defense Department data, based on the years between 2005 and 2010, showed that service members take their lives at a rate of one every 36 hours, it is difficult to cheer.

Meanwhile, the Veterans Administration now estimates that a veteran dies by suicide every 80 minutes. Veterans represent 1 percent of the population, but 20 percent of all suicides.

The problem is systemic and growing. Tuesday, the Center for a New American Security will issue the report "Losing the Battle: The Challenge of Military Suicide." In a compelling narrative, the authors, Dr. Margaret Harrell and Nancy Berglass, provide workable recommendations to address this national crisis. But perhaps the study's longest-lasting contribution is its explanation of why we should care at all.
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