A Strategy to Save Lives

Reminder, prevention and resilience training started a decade ago. No evidence it worked, yet the DOD and Congress kept funding what failed.

Let’s save lives: Here’s a strategy of compassion, concern and intervention to stop suicide
FOX News
By Jeremiah J. Johnston
Published September 10, 2016

Perhaps the most underreported phenomena are the amount of clergy suicides (that is, pastors, priests, and others serving in ministry).

More U.S. citizens kill themselves than kill one another each year. That's stark evidence that proves we are all far more dangerous to ourselves than we are to other people.

Globally, one person dies every forty seconds by his or her own hand. The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics recently released a study documenting the surge in suicide rates in the United States – increasing at an epidemic level from 1999 - 2014 to a nearly thirty-year high of 42,773 completed suicides in 2014.

The stereotype exists that young people, alone, are the highest risk age group prone to suicide (suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages 15-24). Yet from 1999 - 2014 suicide rates increased for both males and females, and all ages between ages 10 to 74.

Suicide prevention is a top priority (to the tune of over $50 million dollars in research and prevention methods) in the military as suicides in all service branches – 4,839 – outpaced the deaths of Americans fighting in Iraq (4,496) during the same period between 2003 - 2014.
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