Terrifying Outcome From Decade of Awareness

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 26, 2015

If everyone is doing something and nothing changes, that something isn't better than nothing. So when do we actually wake up and change the conversation from how many are failed to how to save them?

I get links in my email all the time and frankly, most of them cause me to just move on. They are really that lousy and have little to do with changing anything for the better. Instead of posting the thoughts they leave me with, I just ignore them. In this case, I struggled to just leave it because things like this have too many connections to what is wrong than what is right.

What is wrong is the military has been off the hook for training them in prevention that has not decreased suicides but allowed the stigma to live on with bombastic, simplistic statements like this in Army Deploys Prevention Programs to Combat Soldier Suicides.

“Obviously, suicide is a very complex phenomenon with a lot going on,” said Army Col. Elspeth C. Ritchie, director of the Army Surgeon General’s office for behavioral health. “The main motive for suicide is related to breakup of relationships, usually with a partner.”

If that was the real basis for suicides within the military then why spend so much time on training them at all?

May 29, 2008 – The Army is deploying a multitude of prevention programs as part of efforts to stop soldiers from taking their own lives, senior Army officials said here today. The Army should train its soldiers how to cope with psychological challenges as well as physical ones, Army Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, assistant surgeon general for force protection, told reporters during a Pentagon roundtable. For example, the Battlemind training program prepares soldiers for a combat environment, Cornum said, adding that troops who’ve taken Battlemind training report fewer psychological health problems. Last year, the Army initiated a chain-teaching program to educate all soldiers and leaders about symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and mild brain injury, Cornum said. More than 900,000 soldiers were trained since July, she noted.

When do we get accountability for all these years of leaving service members left without what they need to heal? When do they have to explain to families all this training was continued as more and more committed suicide? When do they have have to account for the fact that with billions spent on this "prevention" they couldn't even reduce the number of non-deployed from committing suicide. How did they expect it to work on those sent on multiple deployments?

By 2013 it was clear "Military And Veteran Suicides Rise Despite Aggressive Prevention Efforts"

The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), already struggling to meet an increasing demand from troops and veterans for mental health services, are watching the suicide rates, and the growing number of those considered "at risk" of suicide, with apprehension.

"It really is extremely concerning," said Caitlin Thompson, a VA psychologist and clinical care coordinator at the national crisis line for the military and veterans.

The warning signs of an approaching wave of suicides are unmistakable.

The news article on K2 radio out of Wyoming problem started with the title itself. "Monster: A Veteran Confronts Suicide" By Tom Morton September 25, 2015. That headline sent a chill up my spine.

It starts with a real number of veteran suicides are double the civilian population rate. That is the what folks need to focus on especially when they have been unchanged over a decade since the reports first started to come out in 2007 when CBS News reported "Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans"

CBS News did an investigation - asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information.

And what it revealed was stunning.

In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That's 120 each and every week, in just one year.

And the article went on with this

It found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.)

One age group stood out. Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)

All of what we've been seeing with "the number of new veterans charities has increased relatively rapidly over the past five years or so, growing by 41% since 2008" reported by Charity Watch A Donor's Guide to Serving the Needs of Veterans and the Military. So why isn't anyone asking what the results are with all these charities and all this awareness raising?

The other thing we should have answers for is why are there so many doing the same exact thing and expecting a different outcome for all the money they raise?

“22Kill.”
“Suicide. It’s always in the backs of peoples minds,” Keith Smith said.
“Nobody really wants to deal with it straight on because it’s kind of a touchy subject, said Smith, who served two deployments with the Wyoming Army National Guard in Iraq.

The “22″ in the 22Kill organization’s name refers to the number of veterans who kill themselves each day. One active service member commits suicide daily, Smith said.

“You’re looking at 8,000 (suicides) or better by the end of the year.”

If you quote "22 a day" but leave out the disclaimer from the Department of Veterans Affairs study released in 2012 that is was based on limited information, then how do you hope to change anything?

Why leave out the largest group of veterans committing suicide?

Veteran suicide numbers have gone up in recent years with much of the attention focused on veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan killing themselves. However, almost seven out of 10 veterans who have committed suicide were over the age of 50, according to a Department of Veterans Affairs study.

Clearly that shows if they continue to repeat what has already failed, the numbers we should see coming are, frankly, terrifying.

Keith Smith said raising awareness is "so that people know what the issue is" but that is actually already known in the Veteran Community. He also said that "suicide is a selfish thing" but that isn't true either.

Wyoming Suicide Awareness - Keith Smith Gives Insight Into #22Kill
Seeing a veteran talking about his service and the seriousness of suicide could have been really powerful had they taken the project seriously. The veteran is chomping on gum appearing to be bored. The interviewer is asking questions that are close to impossible to hear.

MOH Dakota Myer wasn't being "selfish" when he tried to end his own life after "Believing he had become a burden to his family, Dakota turned to the bottle. One night driving home he stopped his truck and pulled out a gun" but as you heard in this interview, the "selfish act" attitude is a huge part of the problem.

Meyer, the 296th Marine to earn the medal, by all accounts deserved his nomination. At least seven witnesses attested to him performing heroic deeds “in the face of almost certain death.”

Braving withering fire, he repeatedly returned to the ambush site with Army Capt. William Swenson and others to retrieve Afghan casualties and the dead Americans. He suffered a shrapnel wound in one arm and was sent home after the battle with combat-related stress. Meyer’s commander, Lt. Col. Kevin Williams, commended him for acts of “conspicuous gallantry at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”

Capt. William Swenson

MOH hangs around their necks for saving lives but those actions did not end with combat. They decided to keep fighting to save even more lives by publicly speaking out on PTSD.

Sergeant Carter as well as Swenson have “publicly talked about the demons they brought home, and no one is questioning their valor,” Mr. Carter adds. “You can clearly struggle and be tough at the same time, which is a very important message for knocking down stigmas.”

For his part, Sergeant Carter has continued to speak out about the toll combat takes on the lives of soldiers long after they return home from war.

“Know that a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress is one of the most passionate, dedicated men or women you’ll ever meet,” he said. “Know that they are not damaged. They are simply burdened with living what others did not.”

The current talk is that the VA is the enemy, but that isn't true either. The problems within the VA have been going on for decades but Congress has had jurisdiction over the VA, no matter which party is in control, for decades. They keep complaining while veterans wait for the best care they had been promised.

The thing is, Vietnam veterans were told to go to the VA for help with PTSD decades ago for a reason. VA may be saving veterans from suicide

For female veterans using the VA, that number held relatively steady over the 11 years included in the data, averaging 10.3.

The figure for women who didn’t seek VA help started out at 29.9 in 2000 and climbed steadily, reaching 43.6 in 2010.

For male VA users, it fell from 37.3 to 29.1.

In contrast, it rose from 27.5 to 38.3 for male nonusers.

Is it perfect? No. It isn't new either. Nothing is perfect but until we get out heads out of behind, we'll never change what is coming. If we don't change the conversation away from what is wrong, no one will be raising awareness about what is working.

What works is simply reminding them

YOU SERVED TO SAVE, SURVIVE TO SERVE OTHERS because you can help them heal to live to fight against the last battle of war.