Growing Plague of Ignorant Reporters

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 5, 2014

The headline of "Murder-suicide is heavy price of an overextended military" with subtitle "The growing plague of military murder-suicide" may get attention but it is ignorant of the facts. There is no "plague" of military murder-suicides any more than there is in the civilian world. Given the vast number of weapons in this country, while it does happen, they rarely happen.

"On Wednesday, it was more than March Madness" but apparently Ken Allard, the author believed that slogan meant a lot more than the simple fact that it happened on the 2nd day of April.

While Lopez was in fact being evaluated for PTSD, the worst thing is he wasn't diagnosed with it but every reporter in this country decided PTSD needed to be part of the story. Allard made sure that was in the second paragraph.

The article went on to the topic of military suicides. A very important topic however suicides are not "murder-suicides.

This part is wrong too

"Upon reaching that grim milestone, the Army redoubled its already heroic efforts to identify and treat potential soldier-suicides. In 2013, the Army personnel chief announced that a “mere” 301 soldiers had taken their own lives: ” while not a declaration of success, it could indicate resiliency efforts are starting to take hold across the force."

While it very well may be what reporters quoted, the fact remains that the Army discharged 11,000 for misconduct alone in 2013. Pretty easy to get a reduction in suicides when that many soldiers were eliminated from the ranks plus the regular discharges the Army did. Since 2006 another 76,000 had been discharged according to a report from January.

"Ken Allard, a retired Army colonel, is a military analyst and author on national security issues." but it appears he has forgotten everything the Army knew and when they knew it.

Repeat Iraq Tours Raise Risk of PTSD, Army Finds was reported by Ann Scott Tyson of the Washington Post on December 20, 2006.

U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army's first survey exploring how today's multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers' mental health

What did leaders do? They just kept on doing it. Sending soldiers back into combat over and over again. Some reporters jumped on the story about soldiers being suicidal before they joined the military however none of them seemed to be able to ask how they got into the military in the first place if they had mental health issues. Doesn't make sense to folks paying attention but hey, as long as that was what someone said that was good enough to report on. Forget facts. Forget that Gregg Zoroya of USA Today reported this

"We're seeing some of the lowest rates of behavioral health issues. We're seeing leadership rates higher than they were in the past. Morale is on the rise. All of the key indicators that we would be looking at are looking much better," says Army Lt. Col. Maurice Sipos, a research psychologist and author of the report.

Despite the improvements, the stigma against seeking mental health help remains, the study shows.

Nearly half of the surveyed soldiers who need therapy said the perception of weakness discouraged them from seeking help. That rate has remained unchanged for years despite military efforts to reduce it, the report said.

Reporters can claim anything they want but the facts condemn what they write. There is no murder-suicide plague" but there is a suicide one. There is a pox on both houses of leaders who failed to take action to prevent them and reporters failing to report the truth and that is something they can never, ever explain.