What is wrong with this report? This!

WGME News blew suicide report, no shocker
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 10, 2018

Chock this one up to a powerful story ruined by a reporter not knowing anything about the subject he just called an "emotional plea" to prevent suicides. 

What is wrong with this report? This!

"According to a statistic released by the military, 22 veterans are dying because of suicide every day."

WGME needs a lesson on the difference between the "military" and the "veterans" they just reported on. The DOD=Department of Defense, and they do release a suicide report every quarter, but since reporters stopped covering that, here is the link to the average of 500 service members taking their own lives every year, counted by the military, but not anyone else.

Here is the link to the suicide report from the VA on veterans committing suicide, with the "22 a day" and the simple fact that number came from just 21 states, and limited data.

This is how much this report cost the tax payers.

"The cumulative cost of the State Mortality Data Project has been $46,771.29 as of 11/16/2012; including FY12 expenditures of $35,094.23 and FY13 expenditures of $11,677.06. All cost associated with the State Mortality Data Project are related to state fees for processing and delivery of mortality data."

All that for a report that was not complete.

"To date, data from twenty-one (21) states have been cleaned and entered into a single integrated file containing information on more than 147,000 suicides and 27,062 reported Veterans. In addition to the issues identified above, barriers to full project implementation include inconsistent availability of requested information in all states, barriers to providing non-resident data and sending preference to provide de-identified data due to conflicting interpretations of Social Security laws. Negotiations with states are continuing as we begin requesting more recent years’ data as well as renewing or revising previously completed Data Use Agreements."

What makes this worse, this was on the same report,

"Estimates that the number of suicides among Veterans each day has increased, are based on information provided by 21 states and may not be generalizable to the larger Veteran population. To account for uncertainty in the estimated number of Veterans who have died from suicide each year, confidence intervals were calculated using variability in the percentage of Veterans reported among all suicides in participating states."

Ya, but a reporter told everyone that was the number and that is how all this BS got started, including dopes like me who believed it, instead of reading the report. About a year later, I finally found the report and read it. Then after the first page, I put duct tape on my head to prevent it from exploding! 

So, then we had people who not only went by the headlines, they decided they didn't even need to know anything more about any of this, but deserved millions of dollars in donation for TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING THEY DID NOT EVEN BOTHER TO LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT!

OK, that rant is over. Now back to the story they news crew blew!

Here is the video on Facebook that captures a veteran, Jeff Paradis telling others they are worth living! He mentions "22 a day" as he cries pleading with other veterans to fight for their lives! 

He was visiting one of his buddies at the VA who survived to fight another day!