Military solution caused suicides

Military solution caused suicides
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 2, 2014

Groundhog Day 2014: Punxsutawney Phil sees shadow, 6 more weeks of winter and the military not seeing shadows of suicides.

Veterans are not the problem. They have problems because they were the solution for troubles this nation decided had to be taken care of. While no war was completely justified in the minds of 100% of the population, the men and women sent took on the 100% of the risk. Not just during combat, but for the rest of their lives.
The suicide deaths of military and veterans have been caused by the military solution to reduce them. How else could we end up with more committing suicide after the DOD started to try to reduce them?

While the military tries to explain that suicides went down in 2013 they are able to avoid the obvious tiger in the room. Reducing suicides has been something the DOD claimed was at the top of their list. Yet when we look at the facts, we see they are far from reaching it even after 5 years of pushing their "resilience" training.

The suicide rate went up after 2009. In the last two years there has been a reduction in the number of troops serving along with one less war and a drawdown of troops in Afghanistan. The military has not had to explain any of this.

Army

2011

As of March 31, 2012

557,780

2012

Total as of December 31, 2012

535,247 (-22,533)

Total as of July 31, 2013

530,382 (-4,865)

(-27,398)

They have not had to explain how the rate of younger veterans, recently discharged, has also increased.

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. The report shows that in 2011 the annual suicide rate for young veterans was 80 for every 100,000 of the population.

In 2009, 46 out of 100,000 committed suicide. Suicide rates among Army soldiers peaked in 2012 with 185. However, the overall suicide rate for active-duty soldiers stayed the same at 22 per 100,000 from 2009-2011. (KFOX News January 29, 2014)

Only 1% of the population serve in the military and only 7% are veterans. Both categories have experienced a rise in suicides.

When do we get answers and accountability? When do families get explanations so they stop blaming themselves for what the DOD did not do?

Army Suicides

For 2010, 156 potential active-duty suicides and 145 "among reserve component soldiers."

CY 2011: 166 and 116 (80 Army National Guard and 36 Army Reserve)

For 2012, there have been 182 and 143 potential not on active-duty suicides (96 Army National Guard and 47 Army Reserve) (Revised to 185 in December of 2013)

For calendar year 2013, there have been 139 potential active duty suicides and 139 potential not on active duty suicides (89 Army National Guard and 50 Army Reserve (Up to November Source Department of Defense)

All this ended with the press release of

There were 150 suicides among soldiers on active-duty status last year, down from a record 185 in 2012, according to Army data. The numbers include both confirmed and suspected suicides.

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness was supposed to address combat PTSD. While on one hand they say they are encouraging troops to seek help, that hand came after the slap of telling them they could train their brains to be mentally tough. Nothing the DOD told them afterwards would undo the damage done. They ended up thinking the problems they had were caused by being weak minded and not training right.

They ended up with the same numbers they had in 2009 with less serving.