Veterans should never be victims of circumstance

Veterans should never be victims of circumstance
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 18, 2013

While the US has 22,328,000 veterans most Americans assume the numbers we read everyday include all of them but they do not. The Department of Veterans Affairs has 827 Outpatient Clinics, 300 Vet Centers, 151 VA Hospitals and 56 Regional Administration Offices. It also operates 131 National Cemeteries. There are 8.76 million veterans in their healthcare system but they only have 3.6 million veterans receiving compensation as of 2012.

There is also the misunderstood figure of 22 suicides among veterans everyday. Those numbers came from a limited group of states researching death certificates where it was indicated the person committing suicide had military service box checked off.

Suicide among Veterans – As Reported on Death Certificates Of the 147,763 suicides reported in 21 states, 27,062 (18.3%) were identified as having history of U.S. military service on death certificates.

However, Veteran status was unknown or not reported for more than 23% (n=34,027) of all suicides during the project period.

Without linking to VA or DoD resources to validate history of U.S. military service, it is necessary to remove those without information on history of military service from estimates of Veteran status among suicide decedents. Among cases where history of U.S. military service was reported, Veterans comprised approximately 22.2% of all suicides reported during the project period. If this prevalence estimate is assumed to be constant across all U.S. states, an estimated 22 Veterans will have died from suicide each day in the calendar year 2010.

Keep in mind that they are only 7% of the population but over 22% of the suicides. They survived combat but cannot find a reason to survive being home?

There is the ignored number of veterans trying to take their own lives as well. This was discovered back in 2010 when a lawsuit was filed against the VA.

But in this e-mail to his top media adviser, written two months ago, Katz appears to be saying something very different, stating: "Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities."

Katz's e-mail was written shortly after the VA provided CBS News data showing there were only 790 attempted suicides in all 2007 - a fraction of Katz's estimate.

"This 12,000 attempted suicides per year shows clearly, without a doubt, that there is an epidemic of suicide among veterans," said Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense.

They key here is "we see in our medical facilities" and not the over 22 million veterans we have in this country. So what's up with the reporting? Do they ever clarify the numbers?

We also know that while all of these veterans served this one nation, they are not being served equally state to state. Why should they be victims of circumstance? Why should it depend on where they live? Why should it depend on which reporter decides they matter enough to report the whole truth?

Wounded Times records their stories and most of their stories are told by their local press but the national news ignores them. Why? Why don't they matter enough for the national press to pay attention to this national crisis?