Reports of non-deployed military suicides is a tactical deflection

Reports of non-deployed military suicides is a tactical deflection
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
December 21, 2012

75% of military attempted suicides committed after treatment How much louder does an explanation need to be? I've been reading these reports for far too long now to believe there are any reasonable excuses left.

The military loves to point out that many of the suicides are committed by servicemen and women that never set foot in combat areas, as if that is supposed to mean anything, while they avoid talking about how long they have been "seriously" trying to prevent suicides.

Military Suicide Prevention posts go back to 2007 on this blog alone while month after month more and more committed suicide. Millions upon millions have been spent on this along with study after study. While research began over 40 years ago, these appalling results prove they have learned very little.

Pointing out that many of the military suicides were not tied to deployment is a tactical deflection.

Why Soldiers Keep Losing to Suicide
Frontline
December 20, 2012
by Sarah Childress

Most soldiers who take their own lives today have no history of deployment. They’ve never seen combat, never been to war.

Nobody really knows why.

And although the military’s suicide problem flared during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so far it doesn’t seem to be ending with them.

About 53 percent of those who died by suicide in the military in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, had no history of deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, according (pdf) to the Defense Department. And nearly 85 percent of military members who took their lives had no direct combat history, meaning they may have been deployed but not seen action.

No Simple Answers

Melinda Pickerel doesn’t know why her son took his life, but not being deployed might have been one of the stressors that overwhelmed him.

Either way, his story underscores the difficulties in finding any one solution for the military’s suicide problem.

Charles Parsons, who was known to his family as Adam, was a smart young man who enlisted in the Navy right after graduating from high school, in 1998, at age 19, Pickerel said.

He served on the U.S.S. Maryland, a ballistic missile submarine, for three years, and married a woman he’d fallen in love with shortly before he’d gone to boot camp.

Then life became more difficult. Parsons’ wife was diagnosed with a mental illness. His younger brother, a Navy security officer, was deployed to Iraq.

Parsons, who was never deployed, was moved to a different job as an electronics technician on Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia — a move he considered a demotion.

A week before his death, Parsons reported to work unshaven and unkempt. He was ordered to report the next day to the captain in his dress uniform for a reprimand.

The next day, Parsons reported for duty as scheduled. He went home a few hours later to change into his dress blues. He said goodbye to his wife and left the house.

He never reported to the captain.

Parsons’ body was found in the trunk of his car outside his home in January 2007. He’d shot himself. He was 27, and he left no note.

His mother said the Navy was supportive after Parsons’ death, even if officials didn’t have any answers, either.

“He sunk into a depression and it just got so bad that nobody, none of his co-workers recognized,” she said.

“He hid it very well.”
read more here

Reporters need to start getting serious about the questions they ask. So far I've seen little evidence they have a clue about what is really going on. They simply accept the answers they are given and that is the greatest injustice to the families left behind.

How many of the non-deployed service members had ROTC training in the suicide studies?
If they went right from high school, thinking computer games prepared them for what they would experience in the military, they were in for a rude awakening.

California National Guards

If you want to see what they go through in training, these videos can give you some idea.

Marines



How many had to get wavers for borderline mental health issues?

What were the reasons they had for wanting to enlist? Lack of jobs? Family issues? Is it what they always wanted to do or because someone in their family is a veteran?

What part of the country were they from? Did they ever use a real weapon to hunt or even shoot a gun before?

If they couldn't get into the branch of the military they want to, what was their other plan? If they said another branch or did they said MacDonalds?

They cannot excuse the rate of suicides going up every year so when they point to the non-deployed forces, they omit many factors. Training of a delusional individual can be traumatic itself. The civilian world acknowledges that people can have PTSD from other causes, but the military doesn't seem to want to acknowledge the factor of "human" after all.

So now you have more of an understanding than most reporters do but if you read this blog often, you were already way ahead of them.

Here is something else you'll find interesting from a psychologist taking an inside look at what is really going on.

Military Mental Health: An Outsider Takes a Peek Inside
Marjorie Morrison is a San Diego psychologist

Unfortunately, even though the Marines were benefiting and publically supporting the program, I met peripheral roadblocks every step of the way. Between the on-base counseling centers and the for-profit insurance company I was contracted with, I became disheartened at the gross negligence that echoed throughout the broken system.

When I initially left the Depot, I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do with my newfound knowledge. It was a problem much bigger than what I could influence.

Nevertheless, not a week went by without some military member contacting me to ask for help for either himself or a buddy. I’d often hear the familiar sad story where someone that needed help didn’t get it, couldn’t find it, or got turned away.

One other thing to point out is that you can't just quit the military and get another job. The type of discharge you get can prevent you from getting employment in the civilian world. In other words, you can't just give your two weeks notice after discovering it is not a computer game and go home.

UPDATE
This is from the Marine suicide report for November

MILITARY: Marine Corps reports record number of suicide attempts
North County Times
December 07, 2011
By MARK WALKER

More U.S. Marines have attempted to take their own lives this year than ever before, according to the service's latest report from its suicide prevention program.

The report said that 176 Marines attempted suicide through November, more than double the 82 reported in 2002, the first year the Marine Corps began recording and reporting the statistics.

Officials say better reporting procedures and heightened awareness is largely responsible for the higher numbers. In 2010 there were 172 attempted suicides, up from 164 in 2009 and 146 in 2008.

The report also said three active-duty Marines committed suicide in November, raising the number of self-inflicted deaths for the year to 32.