Bereavement Valentines for Military Families

Bereavement Valentines for Military Families
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
February 14, 2013



When you read about Military suicides there is a family left behind to grieve for each one of them. Last years alone almost 500 military families received word someone they loved committed suicide. That was 60 Naval families, 59 Air Force families, 48 Marine Corps families, 182 Army families and the usually forgotten about 96 Army National Guards families with 47 Army Reservist families.

Eighty percent of veterans who attempted suicide and survived had received mental health care one month earlier from the Department of Veterans Affairs, underscoring the potential peril of 50-day average wait times they face in trying to access VA treatment, a suicide expert told a Congressional committee Wednesday.

From the same article

According to a VA report released earlier this month, 18 to 22 veterans commit suicide each day. And that rate “has remained steady” since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars began 12 years ago, said Veterans' Committee chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., who noted that during that same span the VA has increased its budget by 39 percent and its staffing by 41 percent.

From the same article

In 2012, for example, the VA’s 24-hour crisis line fielded 193,000 phone calls that resulted in more than 6,400 “rescues” of veterans who were threatening to hurt themselves or their family members, Petzel said.

This part paints the clearest picture of what a massive failure all of this is. 193,000 calls to the crisis line with 6,400 rescues shows what the DOD has been doing on PTSD, outreach, training and everything else they claim they have "done" has resulted in deadly outcomes. They have been claiming to be "taking steps" to reduce the stigma and get these servicemen and women the help they need for too many years and when the press was no longer accepting that for an answer they tried to detour the conversation into the civilian suicide rate without ever mentioning many of the "civilians" committing suicide were in fact veterans. Then they proceeded to further outrage bereaved families by saying "many of them had never been deployed" as if that would make any sense at all.

These men and women were willing to risk their lives when they signed up. They were exposed to combat within the training itself along with seeing coffins come home and amputees fill military hospitals. Did they ever once consider some of these high school kids ended up with some level of PTSD from the training itself? Civilians get PTSD from not being in combat but the military has failed to grasp that simple fact. Not everyone joining the military is cut out to be in the military but they can't just quit so that is more traumatic than losing a job. They also seem unable to consider hazing. Military sexual assaults are forgotten about. The list goes on but again, the military failed to acknowledge that people do not simply go from being willing to die for the sake of others to taking their own lives on a whim.

So each day news arrives that a family member decided they would rather die than spend one more day on this earth because they cannot endure the hell they are in when the military and the VA get away with making unsubstantiated claims.