Convoluted Claims Contributed to Suicides Tied to Military

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 13, 2014

While the majority of reporters and politicians are jumping all over the Department of Veterans Affairs, no one seems interested in the origins of the problems our veterans have been facing for decades. It all started with the failures of the Department of Defense creating the troops sent to fight wars in the first place.

These people are focused on defeating the enemy so who thought it was a good idea to put them in charge of saving lives afterwards? Military brass have a long history of blaming the troops for what they failed to do.

In 2012 Major General Dana Pittard of Fort Bliss posted this disgraceful statement.

“I have now come to the conclusion that suicide is an absolutely selfish act,” he wrote on his official blog recently. “I am personally fed up with soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess. Be an adult, act like an adult, and deal with your real-life problems like the rest of us.”

Last year it was General Ray Odierno blaming the troops for being weak and lacking, as he put it, intestinal fortitude.

Some of it is just personal make-up. Intestinal fortitude. Mental toughness that ensures that people are able to deal with stressful situations.

And then he blamed the families.

But it also has to do with where you come from. I came from a loving family, one who gave lots of positive reinforcement, who built up psychologically who I was, who I am, what I might want to do. It built confidence in myself, and I believe that enables you to better deal with stress. It enables you to cope more easily than maybe some other people.

Did either of these generals have to face hearings on their miserable leadership? Did they have to answer for anything they said or how they treated those who served under them? No.

The DOD pushed a program called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness based on a research project for school aged children. Imagine that! A research project for kids passed off as a treatment to prevent PTSD in soldiers. Someone actually thought that was a good idea. After they started it, the rate among active duty suicides went up along with veterans after they took the training. Other than honorable discharges cleared out thousands of soldiers they no longer had to count. Transfers from one base to another cut the numbers that had to be accounted for because no one looked back to see where these soldiers came from when they surrendered to suicide instead of receiving the care they deserved and earned.

What did the military say about the rise in suicides? They said most the of the soldiers had never deployed. How in the world did any of the "leaders" think it was good when it didn't even work on the non-deployed?

Veterans are created by the military so whatever happens to them as veterans began there. All of it. Now as we discover more and more of the suicides among veterans, we can actually take a look at what started all of it. Here are three states lamenting the deaths of their veterans.

Army Post Sets Example in Curbing Suicides, Preventable Deaths
American Forces Press Service
By Donna Miles
WASHINGTON, Feb. 15, 2013

As military leaders struggle to reverse rising suicide rates within the force, Fort Bliss, Texas, is bucking the national trend, reporting a 30-percent drop last year and serving as a promising model for the Army and its sister services.

Fort Bliss had the lowest suicide rate in the Army during 2012 -- four confirmed and one still under investigation from its population of 33,000 soldiers. That’s down from seven in 2011.

Fort Bliss reported three other preventable soldier deaths last year, also the Army’s lowest rate.

This came at a time suicides increased in the overall Army and across the military as a whole, despite sweeping initiatives across the services and the Defense Department to stem them.

So what’s the magic formula at Fort Bliss, a sprawling post in Southwest Texas’ high desert that became the new home to the 1st Armored Division last year?

Army Maj. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, the 1st Armored Division and Fort Bliss commander, can’t point to any single measure that’s making the difference. Rather, he credits a comprehensive approach that focuses on suicide prevention, risk reduction and resilience.

Confronted by a spate of suicides among redeploying air defenders when he arrived at Fort Bliss in July 2010, Pittard launched the “No Preventable Soldier Deaths” campaign. The goal, he explained, was to prevent not only suicides, but also high-risk behaviors that can lead to drug overdoses, motorcycle and vehicle accidents, and other preventable fatalities.

The campaign is an umbrella for about 32 distinct programs and initiatives. All aim to address the root causes of suicide and high-risk behavior and create an environment that encourages soldiers to look out for each other and seek help when they need it, Pittard said. But the long-term focus -- one he said ultimately will make these successes “stick” -- is on improving soldiers’ ability to overcome adversity and to bounce back when it strikes.
read more on Fort Bliss military suicides here

Yet just in April of 2014 there were 3 suicides Easter weekend and reports that have not been substantiated of another 3 the same month.

Rate of suicide among Oregon military veterans outpaces civilian rates
Oregon Live
By Mike Francis
July 11, 2014

Military veterans made up 8.7 percent of Oregon's population between 2008 and 2012, but they accounted for 23 percent of the state's suicides during that period, according to a recent state report.

The self-inflicted deaths were committed most often by males, but the dead covered all age groups, including veterans of long-ended wars. In fact, the largest segment of suicide victims were men over the age of 55, according to statistics analyzed and reported from the Oregon Violent Death Reporting System by the Oregon Health Authority's Public Health Division.
read more here

Arizona Veterans Suicide Rate Double That Of Civilians
KJZZ
Anthony Cave
September 03, 2013

The rate of suicide among military veterans in Arizona is more than double the civilian rate. Advocates say veterans need more than benefits when returning from war.The average veteran suicide rate in Arizona from 2005 through 2011 is almost 43 deaths per 100,000 people. That’s according to data compiled by News21, a national reporting project based out of Arizona State University. And the rate should increase as more veterans return home.

The Department of Veterans’ Affairs gives disability and college education benefits to veterans, but Thomas O’Donnell said a support system is lacking. He works with student veterans at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. The school specializes in suicide research.
read more about Arizona Veteran Suicides here

Suicide rate for Oklahoma veterans, active-duty military sees incline
The Norman Transcript
By Chase Cook, Oklahoma Watch
August 28, 2013

NORMAN — Oklahoma veterans and active-duty military personnel are killing themselves at twice the rate of civilians, despite increased efforts to address the problem.

The 2011 suicide rate for soldiers was about 44 per 100,000 population, according to an Oklahoma Watch analysis of Oklahoma State Department of Health data. This rate includes active-duty military as well as veterans from the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Gulf War, Vietnam, Korea and World War II. The civilian rate for people over the age of 18 was about 22 per 100,000.

In 2011, 141 of the state’s 684 suicides were veterans, according to state health department records. read more on Oklahoma Veteran Suicides here

President Obama can sign all the executive orders he wants to reduce suicides but since he has been paying attention to all of this going back to his years on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, he should have known the outcomes were from lack of true leadership in the House and Senate, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Members of every session of congress have written bills to "prevent" suicides but we have watched the numbers rise every year. Is anyone checking on the outcomes of these bills and the vast amounts of money spent? It is all so convoluted no one seems to know the answer but even less are attempting to do more than just repeat the claims being made.

Everyone wants to blame everyone else but the truth is, they have been heading in the wrong direction for far too long. As you read by the numbers above, most of the suicides are being committed by Vietnam veterans proving yet again, when it comes to surviving war, surviving home is more dangerous when the people in charge don't have a clue. When more veterans are committing suicide than civilians it proves one simple fact. They survived risking their lives for someone else but couldn't survive someone else playing games with their lives.