Suicide Prevention Month Is Back Again

I have a very cynical attitude to all this raising "awareness" because making anyone aware of a problem has managed to produce more suicides. In other words, when it comes to reducing suicides, no one thought about making the veterans aware of why they should live instead of taking their own lives.

A good example of raising awareness is the mega charity Wounded Warrior Project.  Yep, those guys.  Their stated mission was to "raise awareness" but they forgot to mention that they were interested in making folks aware they wanted them to be aware of WWP.  Not much else. It worked.

What followed their success was a growing emergence of groups raising awareness of suffering and collecting money to do it. Would have been terrific had they actually provided awareness of what works, which they had nothing to do with considering it all started decades ago.  Would have been great if anyone was aware of that.

For years they have been putting on commercials, asking for money, holding some type of fundraising event and then taking a large portion of that money and donating it to colleges along with other charities.  If anyone is angry about that, suggest you think about the commercials because they never once said what they were going to do with your money. 

One more suggestion is that you also check their website from time to time considering it is all on it topped off with press releases that no one manages to read.

They are reorganizing and they are cutting staff according to a report from News4Jax.

Sources said Jeremy Chwat, the chief strategy officer, was let go this week. His biography says he was a founding member of the charity; the non-profit claims there were 27 original founders, although John Melia says he and his family founded the organization in 2004.
According to the organization's most recent tax filings, Chwat's compensation was higher than $300,000 annually in salary and benefits. His departure means four out of five chief officers are now gone in the wake of the charity's spending scandal.

But while the report says it is the largest, it isn't. It isn't new either. None of this is new but apparently there has been a resurrection of the snake oil salesman. All they have to do is talk about the problem without ever offering anything that would change the outcome.

So as the number of veterans committing suicide remains higher than the civilian population, one more thing that everyone should be made aware of is that civilians are not prepared to die for the sake of someone else as a career. (Ok, I lied.  Actually two things to be aware of.) They were also trained in "prevention" that only managed to feed the stigma while civilians were told it was to save their lives.  So how is it that their numbers are higher than the civilian rate of suicides?

Too few were made aware of SNAKE OIL salesmen not saying a damn thing that made a difference for veterans.