Common sense and decency demand accountability on military suicides

Common sense and decency demand accountability on military suicides
Wounded Times Blog
Kathie Costos
June 24, 2013

The military and the press need to stop pretending change is working. It isn't. It hasn't worked since 2008. Common sense and decency demand accountability especially when what has been done came with higher suicides and attempted suicides.

As long as reporters fail to even know what questions to ask, we will see an increase in veterans committing suicide.

At A Texas Base, Battling Army's Top Threat: Suicide is the headline for an article on KUOW news. Some may find it pretty shocking that the biggest threat is not the Taliban or some other opposing force the troops are sent to fight. Others know it all too well.

It infuriates people of conscience. While it is good the military is trying to do something to reduce suicides the flip side is what they have been doing is producing more suicides. They haven't been able to make the connection so they push every failure hoping for different results.

While the above article is about Fort Bliss and their claim they have reduced suicides the reporter Quil Lawrence lacked enough basic knowledge to accurately report the number of military suicides for 2012. Most reporters have gotten it wrong because they omit the National Guards and Reservists. The LA Times reported 524 service members took their own lives in 2012.

There was a series of reports from The Gazette about what was going on over in Fort Carson. Wounded soldiers were being discharged instead of being taken care of.

The Gazette investigative series "Other Than Honorable," published this week, used Army data to show how the number of soldiers getting discharged for misconduct has surged to its highest levels in recent times.

Those discharged include wounded soldiers, some of whom have served in multiple deployments during a decade of war, who are more likely to break Army rules and then be denied benefits.

Is this how Fort Bliss reduced the number of suicides? We do not know. We only know what happened at Fort Carson because reporters knew enough information to ask the right questions so someone would be held accountable.

Pittard is the same person who did this a year ago.

Fort Bliss Major General Dana Pittard blamed soldiers for suicides claiming it was a selfish act and he was tired of it.

"The remarks may reflect Pittard’s own frustration and emotional exhaustion after a grim few months at Fort Bliss. A total of 14 soldiers from the post were killed in traffic accidents and training mishaps between October and December of last year, along with several suicides. Pittard himself had just come from a memorial service for a soldier who killed himself in front of his twin 6-year-old daughters."

“I have now come to the conclusion that suicide is an absolutely selfish act,” he wrote on his official blog recently. “I am personally fed up with soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess. Be an adult, act like an adult, and deal with your real-life problems like the rest of us.”

This is from the above news report.

"It was kind of a no-brainer," says Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard, who last month finished three years as the top commander at Fort Bliss. "Our focus was getting our soldiers to [get] help."

"In 10 years, only one case [of suicide at Fort Bliss] that we know of ... took place when a soldier was in treatment," says Pittard.

Pittard has battled to overcome the military's macho culture that considers reaching for help a sign of weakness. He mandated that all troops arriving at Fort Bliss take a two-day suicide awareness and prevention course that was different from the training used by the rest of the Army.

"In ten years only one case,,, "that we know of." What exactly does that mean? If they are discharged then they do not have to "know" about them. If they are discharged the military does not track them. If they are not in the VA system, the VA doesn't track them. Statistics out of the VA have shown that a very large percentage of suicides tied to military have occurred after they sought help. According to a report tied to a new bill from Senator Joe Donnely, 57% Military suicides happened after they sought help but it also points out that 43% had not sought help. Pittard didn't really clarify his claim.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reports that since October of 2001, more than 286,000 of the approximately 900,000 veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Day who have used Veterans Affairs health care have been coded for PTSD, and an untold number of cases of PTSD remain unreported, undiagnosed and untreated due to lack of awareness about the illness and persistent stigma associated with mental health issues.

Claims made from Pittard along with far too many speaking for the military have not been challenged and they should have been long ago. The results proved what has been happening is the reality of what the servicemen and women face. What the military says is far from reality.