Is the Suicide Rate at Ft Hood Really as Terrible as Reported? (A Crude Analysis)

The media has been reporting that there is a wave of suicide on Ft. Hood. That the number of soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives is staggering. That violence abounds in this highly-stressed population.

I was wondering, is this really true? So I decided to do a very crude statistical analysis of the situation here at Ft. Hood to see if I could shed light on these “shocking” numbers.

I’m not a statistician, and I’m sure my methodology will make a real math nerd wince, but I think I’ve proven that the streets of Ft. Hood are not being flooded by the blood of soldiers taking their own lives.

DISCLAIMER: This is not a White Paper. This is a VANITY. Take it for what it’s worth people!

The national average for suicides in 2008 was 10.9 per 100,000 people. Ft Hood has just under 50,000 troops. Based on that, it would be reasonable (still sad, but reasonable) to expect 5-6 suicides a year.

This year, we've had 10 so far. At a rate of 1 suicide a month, it looks like we'll more than double the national average this year. On it’s face, it looks like we’ve got a serious problem.

1. Men commit suicide more often than women. We have a disproportionate number of men in the military (in 2008, 86.4% of our active duty soldiers were men), so that tips the numbers to favor more suicides.

~The rate for white men in 1995 was 19.7 cases per 100,000 population,
~for black men it was 12.4 cases per 100,000 population, and
~for Hispanic men it was 12.3 cases per 100,000 population.
~However, the rate for Native American men was 20.1 cases per 100,000 population for the same year.

2. Certain occupations are at risk for a higher rate of suicide. Police or public safety officers are on that list. I'd assume that soldiers would face many of the same issues as law enforcement. The hours of work, the scenes they witness, and the long deployments and high op-tempo would all contribute to the stress of the profession.

Why would Ft Hood's rates be higher than the other posts? Well, Ft. Hood has been carrying a lot of the water for these two wars and thus bears the brunt of the stress. Personally, I can attest to that. My own husband has been deployed two out of the four years we've lived on Ft Hood. One thing that’s helped me keep my head up is that everyone is in the same boat. Ten years ago, the question was, "Have you ever been deployed?" Now the question is, "How many times have you been deployed?"

4. Situations predispose people to commit suicide. Any situation where a person feels trapped increases the risk for suicide. I hate to say it, but this is one of the few jobs in this country that you just can't quit. The vast majority of our soldiers are well aware of the commitment they’re making when they join and have no problems serving out their enlistment with honor. But there are a few who join for the wrong reasons, then find that The Life doesn't suit them and realize that they can't just walk away.

It's a fact, war ain't pretty. People are subjected to situations and scenes that would traumatize most anyone with a heart. Many, MANY of these guys have seen combat in one form or another.

6. Relationship stress predisposes a person to commit suicide and military life is *very* hard on a marriage. I don't care how well-adjusted a couple may be, being separated for every other year is stressful. Too many marriages (especially young marriages) don't make it through the gauntlet. (1)

With all of those factors in place, we should have a massive suicide machine brewing behind Ft. Hood‘s main gate. The part that I find amazing is that the suicide rates on Ft Hood are just slightly higher than the total rates for men alone. When one considers all of the negative influences on this particular population, we should be asking ourselves, "What is Ft. Hood doing *right*?"

To be clear, one suicide is a suicide too many. Everything must be done to give our soldiers the resources they need to make it through their career. But to hyperventilate over the “high rate” of suicides at Ft. Hood is a little alarmist.

Now let’s be a little more specific and break down the demographics on Ft Hood to see what we could reasonably expect as far as suicides go in this particular population.

There are about 50,000 soldiers on Ft. Hood. (Asking, “What is the population of Ft. Hood?“ is like asking, “What is the population of an airport?“ It’s hard to get a true number pinned down. The population fluctuates by the thousands as battalions deploy and return. There are months when in-going and out-going parties overlap and the post is overflowing. There are months when traffic is pretty low. 50,000 seemed like a reasonable average.)

White-----62.7%--27,086-------19.7-------------5.3
Black-----19.8%---8,554-------12.4-------------1.1
Hispanic--10.9%---4,709-------12.3-------------0.6
Other-----6.6%----2,851---est 16(4)------------0.5
TOTAL 7.5 men committing suicide

Females average 4.1 suicides per 100,000. As I’m feeling lazy, I’m just going to use that and not break it down by race.

6,800 women at a rate of 4.1 per 100,000 gives us about 0.3 women per 100,000 per year.

Add that to the men and round off and we can expect 8 soldiers to commit suicide on Ft. Hood every year.

We've had ten with a reasonable expectation of 12. Which puts us oneONE suicide above average for the all-male population of the US.

My conclusion? Ten suicides in this high-stress,war-time population does not make a “wave”. It makes a miracle. It's a testament to the strength and character of our soldiers and to the commitment of our leadership to their psychological well-being. It's a testament to the support our soldiers receive from their families, friends and from our community.

Again, we need to work harder to help those who are still falling through the cracks, but it will be a lot easier if we aren't demoralized by the media.

(1) http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/288598-overview
(2) I used the Army’s 2008 racial demographics for these numbers http://www.armyg1.army.mil/HR/docs/demographics/FY08%20Army%20Profile.pdf
(3) I used the stats presented by eMedicine for these numbers http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/288598-overview
(4) I decided not to break down every detail on this so I just took the average of black and white.

I'd like to give a warning to our media. This drum-beat you guys have started (SU-IS-SIDE-SU-IS-SIDE-SU-IS-SIDE...) has the potential to cause great harm with our soldiers - especially our young soldiers.

Many of our soldiers are technically still impressionable teenagers. It is statistically proven that increased attention on the topic of suicide increases suicides and suicide attempts in young people. Your reporting may end up encouraging a young troop who's already in trouble to commit that final act. It's like a crowd yelling, "Jump! Jump!" to a man perched on a window ledge.

If the suicide rate on Ft. Hood takes a sudden jump over the next month or two, you can rest assured that you contributed to that with your demoralizing coverage.

One more point - What does the suicide rate of the soldiers at FT Hood have to do with the TERRORIST act inflicted ON them by a Jihadists psychopath??

Isn’t this a little like a woman being raped and the media relating stories about the prostitution rate in her town *to* that rape?

I charge that the media is using the fact that our troops *are* stressed to justify or to down-play this murderous act.

Now knock it off, you jerks.

You are so right. And we need to keep calling them on it.

I’m getting really sick and tired of snarling at my TV and computer screen. I can’t do much, but I’m going to continue to beat the media over the head with their own BS.

I’m hoping that more and more people will start writing on their blogs and in forums like this one about inaccurate, biased and inflammatory stories.

The media needs to realize that we’re not stupid. We *are* paying attention and we’re not swallowing their crap. We’re analyzing the content and calling “BS” when we see it.

Well done, Marie. The media just loves to claim suicide rates in the military are so much higher than in the general population, but the actual stats don’t really hold up.

My husband is now retired, but I can vouch for the long separations being stressful - it must be that much worse with them deployed. My experiences were only with my husband doing 2 unaccompanied tours in Korea.

What frosts me most in the whole thing is that the guy himself hadn’t even been deployed at all yet, and as a psychiatrist he wouldn’t have been going up against his “Muslim brothers” either.

They need to call him what he was - a “do-it-yourself terrorist,” apparently self-trained for the most part, but whose motivation was every bit as evil as homicide bombers, maybe more so because of his intelligence and training.

You hit the nail on the head, Bucky.

He wouldn’t have *been* fighting Muslims! He did not have that newly invented problem - PREtraumatic Stress Disorder! He did not “catch” PTSD from his patients!

He is a Muslim terrorist. A “Lone Wolf”, they call it.

1. He was in contact with a radical cleric who had ministered to two of the hijackers of 9-11.
2. He was actively trying to contact Al-Qaeda.
3. The morning of the attack, he told his neighbor that he was going to “do G-d’s work” and gave her a Koran.
4. He shouted “Allahu Akbar!” with the first shots.

How deeply does one have to be embedded in denial to deny that this man was a terrorist??

And how dare they equate this to a soldier who’s depressed, stressed and ill and takes his own life?

Not to mention all the stuff that’s coming to light that occurred during his residency (the grand rounds lecture that advocated killing the infidels) and his trying to convert patients to Islam at Ft. Hood. If a Christian did that, he’d be thrown out on his rear.

Political correctness has just gone way too far, that Hasan’s co-workers didn’t report him up the chain for fear of being disciplined.

The Muslims worry about backlash - they ain’t seen anything. Getting targeted as a bigot is a very real and present danger. Maybe someday they’ll see the light, but I doubt it under this administration.

And thank your husband for his service, and you for yours - you truly have one of the hardest jobs in the military. I can’t imagine living at Ft. Hood with my husband deployed. We were there 1999-2001... not my favorite post. At least we didn’t have to do Polk though.

Good job, Marie, both on the analysis, and on living the stressful life of an Army spouse. As a Vietnam vet, I cannot imagine the stress that these frequent rotations are causing. My own daughter, whose husband is a Blackhawk pilot, nears Sainthood in my eyes, but I admit to a certain prejudice in that case.

As for the nutty Muslim psycho, the Army can’t fry him fast enough for me...

Thank you for the compliment!

I’ve been tromping around the world with my soldier for almost 20 years now and it’s not so bad.

I think that the worst was this last deployment. Both the kids are teenagers now and they really do need their father more than ever.

I always tell the young wives who’re stressed about “daddy” being gone so much the same thing, “They’re fine when they’re babies and toddlers. As ‘kids’, they’ll miss him, but adjust. But TEENAGERS! Teenagers - I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl - teenagers need their dads.”

This op-tempo really is hard to maintain. The military has grown by tens of thousands since this all began and it’s still not enough. We need to *win it* and *end it*. (I do love the liberals reaction to the troop stress. “Let’s just give up and let everybody go home!”) :-)

At least they aren’t calling it a “peace-keeping mission” and screwing us out of the deployment pay like they did in the 90’s.

I hear you. Teenagers were a significant factor in my decision to retire rather than deploy again, lo the many years ago. They need close attention, even if they’re *good* kids. Hang tough Marie.

I read that Ft Hood has about 70,000 people there, so 10 suicides is WAY below average no matter how you analyze it.

Didn’t we expect that we would be lied to ... ????????

Well, we were.

Well done, Marie! Because our son is now at Ft. Hood, we pay attention to what goes on there and he alerts us to the BS.

Mr. Niteowl77 Jr. had three ME deployments under President Bush and his morale was still good enough that he reenlisted while overseas in 2008. It took only six months of Obama as C-in-C to make him decide that he no longer wants to be a lifer. All he wants on this tuesday morning is to be given a task somewhere well away from Comrade Photo-op.

Mr. niteowl77

I’d be combing the patient records of this murdering doctor. He could have made his patients more despondent than they otherwise would have been. His murder toll may be much higher than Friday’s atrocity.

We had a real nice place out in Harker Heights near the lake and on the golf course. The deer were really nice to watch (as long as they didn’t jump in front of the car). Still, Ft. Hood was sandwiched between 2 Hawaii tours. ;-) My kids didn’t care for the school they attended - and that makes a big difference. They were building up when we were there and by the time we left there were some good family restaurants and adequate shopping. If we hadn’t been so spoiled by Hawaii it would have probably seemed fairly nice. ;-)

Both the kids are teenagers now and they really do need their father more than ever.

I hear you on that one. Our kids were teens for hubby's 2nd tour to Korea, so I got to log all the hours required by the state for our daughter to get a driver's license. It wasn't quite as stressful as I thought, but I was more than happy to let my husband take over when it was our son's turn. I'm also glad they were a bit too young to drive when we were at Ft. Hood - some crazy drivers in that part of Texas! It seemed we had as many fatalities there per year as we do in the whole state of Hawaii.

“I read that Ft Hood has about 70,000 people there, so 10 suicides is WAY below average no matter how you analyze it.”

I saw numbers that ranged from 42,000 to 70,000 soldiers. I know that the population fluctuates a LOT with battalions coming and going. I figured 50,000 was a “safe” number.

But you have a point. We may well be below the national average.

My husband is in it for the long haul. He used to tease me about doing 30. Now he’s scowling and saying that he’s determined to make Corp Sgt Major as fast as possible, then he’s out. He’s not planning on staying past 26.

Georgia was too hot and wet, Arizona was too dry... Texas is just right! lol!

We bought the land in Kempner specifically so the kids could attend the Lampasas School District. The kids love it there. It’s a farming community and the attitudes toward kids are very natural and family-like.

From what I understand, the other school districts are a nightmare.

“I’d be combing the patient records of this murdering doctor. He could have made his patients more despondent than they otherwise would have been. His murder toll may be much higher than Friday’s atrocity.”

I agree. Horrible thought! :-(

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