Peter Chiarelli wants to stop "scapegoating" the military?

While there is no doubt Chiarelli does care about the troops, this is one of the most terrible comments he could have made. He talks about civilian suicides as if they really have anything to do with the failure of the military to prevent suicides. Really? Is he kidding? Scapegoating the military?

The fact that military suicides have gone up despite hundreds of millions spent on what he kept saying would prevent them does not seem to matter to him anymore.

Peter Chiarelli continues his siege on suicides
By STEPHANIE GASKELL
9/20/12

Retired Gen. Peter Chiarelli spent the final act of his career combating suicides in the Army.

Now, he says, it’s time to stop “scapegoating” military leaders when troops take their own lives and, instead, focus on preventing suicides among all Americans.

After 11 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, every branch of the military — especially the Army — has been under scrutiny over the increase in suicides. A recent Time magazine cover illustrated the problem with a powerful story headlined “One a Day,” referring to recent Army statistics showing that an active-duty soldier commits suicide nearly every day. In fact, more troops committed suicide last year than were killed in combat in Afghanistan.

While these suicides are tragic, Chiarelli told POLITICO, the criticism being heaped on the nation’s military is being overshadowed by an even more troubling number: the estimated 35,000 Americans who take their own lives each year.

“We’re beating up the services who’ve been fighting with an all-volunteer service,” said the former Army vice chief of staff. “We’ve decided that we’re going to scope in on 200 suicides. We ought to quit focusing on this and beating up on the services. What are we doing for the other 34,800?”
read more here

There are reports right here on this blog going back to 2007 where claim after claim had been made about how much they were doing to prevent suicides but we've seen the results with report after report proving what they were doing was not working, yet now we read that it is more about "scapegoating" and that civilian suicides are high too.

This is a huge WTF moment!

Since 2008 I have posted on how what is now called "resiliency" training has been making things worse but military brass just kept pushing it when I was still having to talk them off the ledge as they apologized for not training right and blamed themselves for having PTSD.

I had to help families when it was too little-too late to save the lives of veterans when they were supposed to have come back home safely but the family still had to plan a military funeral.

I hope this was just a poor choice of words on Chiarelli's part instead of an attempt to change his role in all of this.