MIA...Veteran Suicides Missing in Answers

USA MIA on Veteran Suicides
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 9, 2018

It is hard to know where to begin on this. There are so many people out there screaming about something they do not even have a clue about, yet find support when the veterans they scream about do not.

Why is it that talking about veterans committing suicide has become something worth millions a year into the accounts of the talkers, yet no one is accounting for the fact this has been a miserable failure?

That is the "easy" answer. People care but they do not care enough. They forget that decades of people seriously trying to find the answer, have dedicated their lives to knowing, at least, what they do not yet know.

Yep, that complicated. You't think these folks would have told their followers and supporters the truth, but why should they when nonsense worked so well for them?

Here are something things the veterans community are talking about, other than raising awareness is BS!

There are veterans living in other countries. 

There are currently some 330,000 veterans and some 35,000 Puerto Ricans in active duty service. The Puerto Rico Army/Air National Guard and the Reserve components represent another 10,000 Puerto Ricans in uniform. At least, 375,000 Puerto Ricans are veterans or are still wearing the uniform. May 28, 2017 NBC News

This is from PBS, just for an example.

There are more than 50,000 U.S. military servicemen and -women stationed in Japan. The presence is so large that in the island of Okinawa, the U.S. military occupies about 19 percent of the area, according to Ellis S. Krauss, professor emeritus of Japanese politics and policy-making at the University of California, San Diego.Roginski, who volunteers for the Misawa Air Base Retiree Activities Office, said he helps connect more than 450 retirees and their families living in Northern Japan with resources. He said he would never move back to the United States. 

There are more veterans living in many other countries. Considering that the VA only used limited data from just 21 states in the original report, it is hard to tell how many were missed.

What makes all this more complicated is California, with about 2.5 million veterans, and Illinois, with over 700,000 veterans, were not counted in either report. Why? Both states had to pass legislation in 2017 to have military service added to the Death Certificates. Take a look at your state data.

Why is that important? Because when the CDC attempted to fill in the gaps in the first report, they knew how many Americans committed suicide (close but not perfectly) they did not count any of those veterans. 

In the second suicide report, the VA used more sources for data, but if the veterans in those states were not in their data base, they were not counted.

For all the talk about people claiming to know how many veterans committed suicide, this should give you an idea of just how wrong they are.

Not just wrong about the "number" they use, but in the things they are doing. Talking about a number and pretending to be doing something about any of these tragic deaths, does not benefit anyone but the one doing the talking to the press and collecting money for the stunts they pull.


There are many more, however, a recent report has not been found. Thousands live in Canada, Japan, Germany, the UK and, basically, all over the world. Does the VA count any of them? They are our veterans. Shouldn't they matter?

So, how do we get a right answer?

Take the VA data base and find the suicides within the system.

Cross match names against the CDC records for veterans not in the VA system.

Check names not in the VA system from the DOD data base. This will verify military service.

Then they will be closer to how many veterans commit suicide. You will never, ever know exactly how many. Too many variables.

Dishonorable discharges. Homeless veterans not admitting they are veterans. Accidents hard to know for sure if it was an accident or on purpose. Same with drug overdoses.

Again, back to the Death Certificates, some states do not count military service unless the service was in a war zone. If they were among the survivors of some of the US Navy ship disasters, they would not be counted. 

Humanitarian mission, would not be counted in those states.

National Guards and Reservist, who were not deployed into combat zones would not have been counted.

The list goes on and on. 

The question is, considering these "awareness" groups, do not address any of this, it should be very concerning as to what they actually do know. After all, if it is important enough for them to be raising so much money, wouldn't it be important for them to know any of these facts?

Why should it be when they have been able to collect millions of dollars running to reporters to have their publicity stunts covered? Why would they bother with facts when the have these massive Facebook groups believing every word they say, and never once consider what they are not saying? 

For more information, check some more important facts that have not been part of what they are aware of. The number of groups "raising awareness" keeps growing, yet the number of known suicides remains as it was back in 1999, even though the number living veterans has gone down by over 5 million.

65 % of the known veterans committing suicide were over the age of 50. Do they focus on that majority or do they ignore them?

They do not mention members of the military committing suicide.

They do not mention veterans being killed by members of law enforcement.

The biggest thing they are not talking about is that VETERANS ARE NOT GAINING ANY HOPE BY ALL THIS TALK. SOMEONE SHOULD LET THEM KNOW WHY THEY SHOULD NOT COMMIT SUICIDE. Gee, like maybe they can heal PTSD instead?