Suicide Awareness Missing in Action

Liberty to lie should never be acceptable or profitable
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 13, 2018

People have not just taken the liberty to lie, they have made it seem acceptable. That is what is going on all over the country when someone uses veterans committing suicide as a cause for them to become a celebrity.

Sometimes they just don't know what the truth is. If they don't, then we need to be asking how they expect to change anything if they do not know what the facts are. How much time did they spend on researching the topic verses gaining publicity? What is it they hope to accomplish by "raising awareness" when they didn't even think to become aware of what works to change the ending they claim is so important to them? Veterans already know they are killing themselves. They don't know how to heal!

There is proof that Suicide Awareness has not worked in the last decade but no one has had to explain why they not only keep doing it, but deserve donations to continue to be so lax they do not even understand the solution. Any wonder why it has gotten worse for veterans to survive being back home?

These groups do not even mention the number of suicides while still in the military either.

Veterans over the age of 50 are 65% of the suicides, yet none of these groups paid attention to that fact. Why are they being left out of all this "awareness" all these new groups keep getting publicity for?

We have to start calling them out for a reason. Suicide only happens because people lose hope. If they keep pushing the number they grabbed from a headline, without bothering to read the damn reports, then all they are doing is showing veterans they really don't matter while putting the spotlight on too many veterans giving up.

This is an extremely complicated topic. There is far too much casual care folks are not aware of. Top that off with the simple fact that "raising awareness" has not done any good over the last decade.

Here are some headlines;

Illinois:
A unique way to raise awareness for veteran suicides

At a busy intersection in Georgetown is Patriot Park. Layton Warstler said "I can sit here and kind of reflect and remember all the veterans who have lost their lives in this town".But he didn't want to stay for a moment, he wanted to camp for 22 days raising awareness for veterans who commit suicide.He said he was "representing the 22 veterans on average that kill themselves and then voluntarily making myself homeless to bring awareness to homeless veterans".

Idaho:
Marine fighting against veteran suicides through non profit

BOISE, Idaho — According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, twenty-two veterans a day commit suicide. A Boise man is trying to help bring awareness to this disturbing trend. Last year after losing a friend he started Ride for 22 to further his cause. December 28th he ended up taking his own life,” Steven Exceen said.

Veteran suicide rate in spotlight as Easthampton Savings Bank execs join local police in no-shave 'Manuary'

What are they doing?

Murphy is one of dozens of Easthampton and Holyoke police officers growing beards during the month of January to raise funds for Twenty Two Until None, a non-profit devoted to ending veteran suicide.

That is the claim but when you go onto the site, you need to read it for yourself. How can any group be "devoted" without doing any basic research as to what has already been done over the last 40 years so they know what works and then do it? How can they claim to regard this topic as worthy of their time if they do not invest that time in even reading the reports? How do they expect to change the outcome when resources they list are to other places?

*******UPDATE*******

GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY, Mich., (WPBN/WGTU) -- Students from two Traverse City high schools presented a $13,000 check to a veteran suicide prevention group.

During halftime at Friday night's Traverse City Central vs. Traverse City West basketball game students gave the check to 22 2 None.

*******

A few things seem like really good steps when their site lists helping the homeless and giving veterans emergency funds.

Police Officers are participating without knowing the truth. They are not doing it for police officers committing suicide, but supposedly for veterans without even reading the reports that the groups name derived from.

This was reported by Associated Press on Law Enforcement suicides.

Studies show there are about 125 to 150 officer suicides a year and more than 200,000 officers are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or some other form of emotional stress 

 They need to stop and actually gain some knowledge if they really intend to change the outcome. Do they know the "22 a day" VA report came from just 21 states limited data? Do they know why it was "limited data" at all?

For starters, California and Illinois did not have military service on their death certificates. Over 2 million in California and over 700,000 in Illinois were not included in on any of the research. 

The CDC did not count them on the following report if they were not honorably discharged because no state will allow them to have military service checked off on their death certificate. In some states, military service has to be connected to a "War" or they are not allowed to indicated it.

There are over 400,000 charities all over the country geared toward veterans. Over and over again, we read about them, what they claim and then read the reports showing the actual results of those claims.

Is the general public actually that disconnected from reality? Are members of the veterans community actually that disconnected from their own brothers and sisters? Are families actually that deluded they join the groups pushing a number that does not exist when one of their own was missing from that number as well as their lives?

Are we serious about any of this or not?

UPDATE Continued,
Really sorry that when awareness began, it was actually needed in the hopes that the people with the power to do something about it...would do it.  Some did, but mostly, people just did what they wanted to.

Aware: having or showing realization, perception, or knowledge

Beware: to be wary of

we must … beware the exceedingly tenuous generalization

 

 —Matthew Lipman

This is when veterans needed the public to be aware of what was happening to them when they were supposed to be safety back home from war. This is from The Suicide Wall

One Vietnam Veteran, who had been suicidal and wishes to remain anonymous, said, "After reading Suicide Wall, I am determined never to have my name on such a memorial."

In Chuck Deans' book, Nam Vet., printed in 1990 by Multnomah Press, Portland, Oregon, 97226, the author states that "Fifty-eight thousand plus died in the Vietnam War. Over 150,000 have committed suicide since the war ended". According to this book, Chuck Dean is a Vietnam Veteran who served in the 173rd Airborne, arriving in Vietnam in 1965. At the time the book was written, Mr. Dean was the executive director of Point Man International, a Seattle based, non-profit support organization dedicated to healing the war wounds of Vietnam Veterans.While doing research for his novel, Suicide Wall, Alexander Paul contacted Point Man International and was given the name of a retired VA doctor, and conducted a phone interview with him. In that interview, the doctor related that his estimate of the number of Vietnam Veteran suicides was 200,000 men, and that the reason the official suicide statistics were so much lower was that in many cases the suicides were documented as accidents, primarily single-car drunk driving accidents and self inflicted gunshot wounds that were not accompanied by a suicide note or statement. According to the doctor, the under reporting of suicides was primarily an act of kindness to the surviving relatives. 

April 05, 2007

Non-combat deaths-Non caring media and was followed up with this. 
April 16, 2007  Cause of death, because they served

Gee silly me, I thought that we were supposed to be helping veterans want to stay here instead of telling them how many we think decided to leave this earth!