Shove This Into Suicide Awareness

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 24, 2015

There are so many numbers jumping around in my head that sometimes I get a little crazy feeling like I belong on one of those Snickers commercials.
You know, eat a Snickers and you'll feel more like yourself but that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Instead of using a candy bar, I've been trying to shove some basic facts into the conversation just like I'm doing now. The only way I'll feel better about over 30 years doing this is when there are more living and healing than suffering and dying.


"The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006" 

That was reported by "By PAULINE JELINEK Associated Press Writer" and the title of the article was "Army Suicides Highest in 26 Years"

Now that you know that, this is the result of what 9 years of "prevention" efforts have produced. It has all gotten worse but the other thing not being talked about in this "Suicide Awareness Month" is there are less serving now then back when the numbers were at a "26 year highest rate."

"In the first quarter of 2015, there were 57 suicides among service members in the active component, 15 suicides among service members in the reserve component and 27 suicides among service members in the National Guard." 

That was reported by the Department of Defense on July 10, 2015. 57+15=72+27=99 in just 3 months.

When everyone is saying the same thing and it all gets worse, it is time to change the conversation! Because as the number of suicides went up within the military, they also went up within the community of Veterans.

Dwayne D. Davis committed suicide. Most of us were infuriated to see the numbers go up, especially after all these years of real awareness. You know, the kind of stuff no one is talking about, like what PTSD is, why they have it and what they can do to heal, but all that was learned in the 40 years before all this was forgotten by researchers looking to make a name for themselves along with getting to cash big checks.

This is what was being reported back then when our heads were exploding. This was reported by the Kansas City Star reporter Lee Hill Kavanaugh "Veteran Suicide Rates Highlight Heroes Tough Battle at Home"

In December, a year after he got out of the Army, he asked for help. He spent 30 minutes talking with a psychology intern at a Veterans Affairs hospital. He told how he felt edgy and had trouble sleeping. He told about his rage and depression, his fatigue, his difficulty with crowds. He told about keeping a gun under his pillow and carrying a blade everywhere he went.

He had cleared the first hurdle, taken the first step.

But he never took a second.

Instead, two days after his 30th birthday, the Raytown native and Army veteran of four tours of war — two in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, one in Kosovo — became part of a grim litany of veteran suicide statistics.

But 18 suicides each day translate to more than 6,500 deaths a year — and 21 percent of all U.S. suicides. Veterans make up about 8 percent of the U.S. population.

Now, with the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq lasting longer than World War II, the number of troops returning home with some form of mental illnesses is increasing.

On April 22, Sgt. Davis came home after an 80-hour week in an Oklahoma oil field. He'd had car trouble. In a rage, he grabbed a rifle and shot out the windshield of his wife's car outside their Elk City, Okla., home. Then he asked where his handgun was. She had hidden it earlier.

When she looked into her husband's normally crystal-blue eyes, she shuddered. They "just looked black," she said. She ran outside and hid in the backyard bushes. Before police arrived, she heard one shot.

And knew.

Her husband had killed himself.

Yep, they were using "18" a day back then and now they're using "22" as if that is even close but as we've seen, they are not even getting close to the true number any more than they are getting close to doing anything to reverse all this. Sorry, I forgot to mention that report came out in 2008.

Gary Sinise was doing a PSA for the Department of Veterans Affairs on Suicide Prevention.

The pilot program is intended to raise awareness of suicide prevention and spread the word about the VA’s 24-hour suicide prevention hotline. CBS News has learned the ads will show a silhouette of a soldier kneeling in front of an American flag with the message: “it takes the courage and strength of a warrior to ask for help. If you or someone you know is in an emotional crisis call 1-800-273-TALK.”

Too bad for the families left behind on all of this and left out of the conversation because most of them have been blaming themselves. No one told them it was not their fault. No one told them how they could have changed what the DOD and the VA have been unable to learn. No on told them that Congress started to spend money on all of this 4 decades ago just as no one has told reporters it is time to hold all of them accountable.

In the end, veterans are dying to know where the hell we are on all of this "awareness" raising everyone seems to be talking about because frankly, they are already aware of how much they suffer for what we failed to do.