Military suicides cross party lines

Military suicides cross party lines
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
September 14, 2012

Military suicides are not about political parties, but they are about not taking care of the men and women willing to risk their lives for us.

This poll will be up until Veterans Day

Secretary of Defense

Donald Rumsfeld January 20, 2001 – December 18, 2006

Robert Gates December 18, 2006 – July 1, 2011

Suicide Rate By Military Branch
The rates per 100,000 people of suicide among active-duty personnel in the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force. The statistics show an increase in suicide rates since 2001, compared with the relatively steady rate of suicide among the U.S. civilian population.

Source: U.S. military branches (2001-09) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (latest figures through 2006) Credit: Adrienne Wollman

Suicides of Soldiers Reach High of Nearly 3 Decades January 01, 2009

Leon Panetta current

Army suicides doubled last month from June's total
Associated Press
Posted on August 16, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — Suicides among active-duty soldiers in July more than doubled from June, accelerating a trend throughout the military this year that has prompted Pentagon leaders to redouble efforts to solve a puzzling problem.

The Army, which is the only branch of the military that issues monthly press statements on suicides, said 26 active-duty soldiers killed themselves in July, compared with 12 in June. The July total was the highest for any month since the Army began reporting suicides by month in 2009, according to Lt. Col. Lisa Garcia, an Army spokeswoman.

The Marine Corps had eight suicides in July, up from six in June. The July figure was its highest monthly total of 2012 and pushed its total for the year so far to 32 — equal to the Marines' total for all of 2011. The Marines' July figure is being posted on its website but was provided first to The Associated Press.

The Air Force said it had six in July, compared with two in June. The Navy had four in July but its June figure was not immediately available.

The Army's suicide numbers have been higher than the other services, in part because it is substantially larger than the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force. The Army also has had more members in combat over the past decade. It was the main ground force in Iraq and has a preponderance of the U.S. troops today in Afghanistan.

For the first seven months of 2012, the Army recorded 116 suicides among active-duty soldiers. If that pace were maintained through December the year's total would approach 200, compared with 167 for all of 2011.

What they got wrong

Redeployments, Troops stressed to breaking point because of redeployments

Resiliency is wrong because it tells them they can train their brains to be tough and prevent PTSD.

Medications, providing medication without therapy and without addressing PTSD numbs them while allowing PTSD to do more damage.

Not informing families on what PTSD is and what they can to do help has caused more stress on the veterans as well as the families.

Discharing even one member after they sought help has also contributed to all of this.

Research that has been repeated waisting time and funds that should have been invested in proven programs.

What they got right

Peer support

Outreach efforts

Generals and other leaders coming forward to talk about their own experience with PTSD.

Talking about buddies that took their own lives.

Families talking about their own pain.

The time to act for their sake was when the troops were deployed into Afghanistan in 2001 but no one looked to experts on combat PTSD to plan for any of this. To this day, while I track reports across the country, too few experts on PTSD are involved in these attempts to prevent military suicides.
Over and over again the number of our forces committing suicide without being deployed but none of them attempt to explain why they did it.

Over and over again military brass makes statements of how serious this is but what comes afterwards are more of the same failures repeating the same mistakes pushed by the same people already proven to have failed.

If they are ever going to prevent most of the military suicides, they have to take a look at what has failed instead of repeating them hoping for a different result.

The failures happened in two administrations, under three Defense Secretaries, under Democrat controlled House as well as Republican controlled House. Neither party can claim they support the troops when both parties have failed them.