A misunderstood statistic: 22 military veteran suicides a day

I am not sure why most reporters avoid this fact but they do. Maybe it is easier to just ignore the older veterans committing suicide because, well, after all, they are old. Vietnam veterans are now senior citizens, but don't tell them that when you see them on a Harley. Don't tell them that when they are raising money for this charity or that one. Whatever you do, don't tell them when they are grieving for yet one more of their "brothers" they had to bury.

The worst thing in ignoring Vietnam veterans and older veterans are most of the suicides, backlog of claims and the least of the news reports, is the simple issue that wars do not stop claiming lives just because they are declared over. This article is very much appreciated.

A misunderstood statistic: 22 military veteran suicides a day
LA Times
Alan Zarembo
December 20, 2013

Most of the 22 military veteran suicides that occur each day do not involve people who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. The parents of Iraq war veteran Rusty McAlpin comfort each other near where their son killed himself with a handgun.
(Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

In most discussions of suicide and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — including the online buzz that followed publication of a Times analysis on how young California veterans die — one statistic gets repeated most: 22 veterans kill themselves each day.

That number comes from a study published in early 2013 by researchers at the federal Department of Veterans Affairs. But the recent wars were not the study's primary focus. In fact, they play a minor role in veteran suicides overall.

The VA researchers used death records from 21 states to come up with a 2010 national estimate for veterans of all ages. As a group, veterans are old. Military service being far rarer than it was in the days of the draft, more than 91% of the nation's 22 million veterans are at least 35 years old, and the overwhelming majority did not serve in the post-9/11 era.

About 72% of veterans are at least 50. It is not surprising, then, that the VA found that people in this age group account for 69% of veteran suicides — or more than 15 of the 22 per day.

Many experts believe that the farther a veteran is from military service, the less likely it is that his or her suicide has anything to do with his or her time in uniform. In other words, many older veterans are killing themselves for the same reasons that other civilians in the same age group kill themselves: depression and other mental health problems coupled with difficult life circumstances.
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