What is the number of veteran suicides today?

How many veterans committed suicide?

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 25, 2019

There seems to be a lot of assumptions on how many veterans committed suicide. If you think you know, it is unknown, therefore, you are just think you know. It is not a known number, but, in this case, it is actually worse than we can imagine.

The reports from the VA use limited data and are 2 years behind. In other words, they do not really know how many have committed suicide.

The DOD reports are behind by three months, therefore, their data is more reliable when determining if "efforts" have worked or failed.

This shows the percentages of known suicides from on of the latest VA reports.

Number of veterans living year to year decreased since 2005 and while the reported number stayed about the same, the percentage went up. Again, the data only goes up to 2016.

The Department of Defense report shows the same result. The average of Active Duty, National Guards and Reservists, has remained an average of 500 a year since 2012.

Department of Defense Suicide Prevention Office

Take a look for yourself. Add the "Active" with the total for "Reserve Component" together.

We will never know how many veterans are committing suicide today, or how many could have been saved. 

If we had actually stopped pretending to know what we did not know, then maybe we would have imagined how to change the outcome.