Military suicide number big news to some

Military suicide number big news to some but right now, understand that while inside my head I am swearing enough words that would embarrass any biker I know, you won't be subjecting to reading them. I wish I could say the same for what I just read all over the Internet. All of these reports leave me with one question. Take a look at these and then you'll understand where my question comes from.

Military suicide rate hit record high in 2012 NBC News.com (blog) has something kind of interesting.

“This happens almost every month when they come out with the suicide numbers: (a flurry of media stories and public vows to immediately solve the problem), so I don’t want to get stuck on the number. But it’s too high and clearly it’s not a good trend,” said Kristina Kaufmann, executive director of Code of Support Foundation, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit that advocates for needs of those in the military community, including military families.

“We have a lot of organizations both within the government and within the nonprofit sector that are trying (to curb the military-suicide rate) and people are really, intensively — finally — looking at this. But there’s a lot of damage in the pipeline and that’s the part we haven’t dealt with effectively,” Kaufmann added.

Never heard of this group and not sure why this person said she "doesn't want to get stuck on a number. What the hell does she mean by "finally" looking at this and why the hell did the reporter let her get away with just making that claim? We've been at this for 40 years!

US Military's Suicide Rate Surpassed Combat Deaths In 2012 NPR (blog) has nothing really new on it and does not address the questions that should be asked.

Military Suicides Reached Record High In 2012 Huffington Post has more of a rehash of what we've all been reading for years now. Senator Patty Murray was quoted but the reporter didn't know enough to ask her about this quote back in a 2007 interview she did.

In the summer of 1972, a 22-year-old Washington State University student named Patty Murray reported to the Seattle veterans hospital for an internship in physical rehabilitation.

She was assigned to the psychiatric ward on the seventh floor of the orange brick monolith on Beacon Hill.

"Every morning when I arrived, they locked me in with the patients," Murray recalled recently. "I heard the big doors close behind me."

Her charges were young men who had returned from Vietnam. As Murray exercised their arms and legs, they described buddies blown apart and children, mistaken for guerrillas, shot and killed. Some stared vacantly; others shouted in anger.

Murray saw some of these same patients slip through cracks in the veterans-care network, left jobless, homeless and unable to find help.

"We didn't have a name for what they were suffering," Murray said of what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Thirty-six years later, Murray is still working in rehab, trying to fix what's broken in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992, she's become the leading voice for veteran care in Congress.

“The fact that we aren’t meeting the demand for our troops’ psychological health needs with qualified professionals is a great concern of mine,” she said in a telephone interview. “The Pentagon needs to tell us what they are doing to fill the gaps in the system, particularly when troops are being sent back into the field for their third and fourth tours.” April 15, 2008

I added these thoughts

How long is this going to go on and when are they planing on getting any of this right? When will they do what they know works until they can hire enough people at the VA to treat them? What are all these veterans supposed to do while they "try to hire" more and make room for the wounded they keep adding to the system on a daily basis? This is disgusting, frustrating and reprehensible! There are long term fixes that have to be done because we are looking at probably 800,000 or more than likely more now that Vietnam Veterans and Korean Veterans as well as WWII veterans are finally understanding what has been wrong with them is a wound, but no one planned on any of them either. Do they plan for anything?

Oh but then after Lucas Senescall's suicide raises questions about PTSD care in August of 2008 we read this, again from Senator Patty Murray.

“More than five years [after the start of the Iraq war], we should have the resources in place to treat the psychological wounds of war as well as we do the physical ones. But we don’t,” Murray said. “When someone with a history of depression, PTSD, or other psychological wounds walks into the VA and says they are suicidal, it should set off alarm bells We can’t convince veterans or service members to get care if they think they will be met with lectures and closed doors. That is unacceptable. At the very least, we must ensure that staff at military and VA medical centers have the training to recognize and treat someone who is in real distress.

US military suicides exceed combat deaths CBS News has nothing new.

Military suicides rise to a record 349, topping number of troops killed in combat Washington Post also has nothing new.

A Suicide After-Action Report on TIME has a useless article by Elspeth Cameron Ritchie repeating headlines taken from other reporters and providing nothing new at best but worst of all is not asking the questions that need to be answered.

US military suicide in 2012 at record high on BBC News again, nothing new. Now real questions so no answers.

Did any of these reporters bothered to take a look at their own archives?

THEY MAY HAVE ASKED HOW IT ALL ENDED UP THIS BAD!