Wrong reports screw military and veterans

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 26, 2014

When reporters don't care about the subject they report on, military folks and veterans are screwed. After all, our family members are only 8% of the population. 1% serve today, actually less than 1%, and veterans are only 7% of the population. No one bothered to ever calculate the percentage of families. All of us have been dealing with reality while reporters remain oblivious.

Yesterday on Wounded Times there was the report out of Fort Bliss investigating the suspected suicides of three soldiers last weekend. In that report trouble in the Air Force screamed for attention.

According to Air Force figures, 55 airmen died by suicide last year, a rate of 14 per 100,000 personnel. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told a Senate panel in April that 32 airmen have died by suicide so far in 2014, a rate of more than 18 per 100,000 personnel.

Wounded Times covered what Gregg Zoroya reported on USA Today how the military calculated suicide numbers when this popped up.

The Army National Guard rate for 2012 reached 30.8 deaths per 100,000 with 110 suicides. The suicide rate for men in the Army National Guard was 34.2-per-100,000,Pentagon data shows. For full-time troops across the U.S. military, the suicide rate peaked at 22.7-per-100,000 in 2012 and fell to 19.1-per-100,000 last year, according to the Pentagon.

In THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR the data collected from over 22,000 articles uncovered the disgraceful lack of investigations by the press. This is our lives. These are our family members. They matter to us but evidently too many reporters don't care enough so the general public only knows what they are told by reporters they trust.

How can the press be so wrong on the same report? It happens all the time. Reporters either make up their minds ahead of time or their minds simply can't understand the complexity of what they are reading.

It just happened again.

Times San Diego had this headline by Ken Stone on April 25, 2014

Pentagon Reports 474 Military Suicides in 2013 — 18% Drop from 2012 Toll

It began with this.

The suicide rate for active-duty military fell 18 percent in 2013, but the toll is still daunting — 474 troops killed themselves, according to a Pentagon report released Friday. The preliminary 2013 total deaths by suicide were 261 among active duty service members and 213 deaths in the reserve component, compared with a total 522 a year earlier.

Why would it have been reported that way? Because that is what a Lt. General told him.

“With an 18 percent drop in 2013, something is going right,” said Army Lt. Gen. Michael Linnington, military deputy at the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

On the same day, Lolita C. Baldor of Associated Press had this headline and Indiana Gazette put it up on their site.

Military suicides fell last year, report finds

That report began with the "good news" followed by the bad on the suicides of National Guards and Reservists.

Suicides across the military dropped by more than 15 percent last year, but new detailed data reveal an increase in the number of Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers who took their own lives.

The overall totals provided by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps give some hope that prevention programs and increased efforts to identify troops at risk may be taking hold after several years of escalating suicides.

But the increase among Army National Guard and Reserve members raises questions about whether those programs are getting to the citizen soldiers who may not have the same access to support networks and help that their active duty comrades receive.

It was a total inability to factor in the other parts of what is going on such as the reduction of members in the military to count in the first place. Every branch made cuts the regular way but they also added in thousands of "bad conduct discharges" like the Army with 11,000 in 2013.

KRMG posted this headline on the same subject on the same day by Don BIshop.

Military suicide rate increasing Increase among Army National Guard, Reserve members

The problem with that report is the tiny bit of copy they provided that made no sense at all.

Another site The Wire led with "Suicide Is Now Killing More Army Reservists Than Active Duty Soldiers" from the same report out of AP.

The problem is these reports are wrong. When they report that there are less suicides they need in include the simple fact that there are less enlisted to count.

The DOD Live site had this trivial tidbit on the same day.

It is pretty bad when a whole article on this serious subject can fit on a jpg.