Less soldiers, not enough drop in suicides, bad situation

Less soldiers, not enough drop in suicides, bad situation
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 6, 2014

To the Army's credit, they say they cannot explain the drop in soldiers committing suicide instead of attempting to delude the public into thinking they finally got it right. Against the Army's credit is they have failed to explain the drop in suicides has more to do with less soldiers than any other factor.

ACAP BY THE NUMBERS
1,000: average of soldiers separating from Fort Hood each month
9,928: active-duty soldiers that separated from Fort Hood in fiscal year 2013
5,805: Reserve soldiers that separated from Fort Hood in FY 2013

The headlines of the reduction of suicides has been misleading. As if this isn't bad enough, Department of Veterans Affairs recently released a report that shows suicides among young veterans just getting out of the military are three times higher than active-duty soldiers.

In September suicides at Fort Hood had dropped but attempted suicides went up.

This year, Fort Hood Soldiers have reported more suicide attempts and ideations than they had at the same time last year. In the first nine months of 2012, there were 260 ideations and 60 attempts reported. Thus far, in 2013, Soldiers have reported 306 ideations and 75 attempts.

The separation numbers are only from Fort Hood but the same thing is happening around the country. Less soldiers but the press has been only focusing on the reduction of active duty suicides without mentioning that fact.