Posted on 04/28/2010 4:05:35 AM PDT by ResistorSister
An average of 18 US military veterans are taking their lives every day as the Obama administration and the Pentagon grow increasingly defensive about the epidemic of suicides driven by Washington’s wars of aggression.
The stunning figure was reported last week by the Army Times, citing officials in the US Veterans Affairs Department.
The department estimates that there are 950 suicide attempts every month by veterans who are receiving treatment from the department. Of these, 7 percent succeed in taking their own lives, while 11 percent try to kill themselves again within nine months.
The greatest growth in suicides has taken place among veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who accounted for 1,868 suicide attempts in fiscal 2009, which ended on September 30. Of these, nearly 100 succeeded in killing themselves.
The connection between the “surge” in military suicides and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is undeniable. The suicide rate within the military doubled between 2001 and 2006, even as it remained flat among the comparable (adjusted for age and gender) civilian population. And the numbers continue to rise steadily. In 2009, 160 active-duty military personnel killed themselves, compared to 140 in 2008 and 77 in 2003.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsws.org ...
This article is based on a story in the Army Times. I tried to post the story from the Army Times, but there is a copyright issue and stories from that source cannot be posted on FR.
Source: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/04/military_veterans_suicide_042210w/
My father, a wounded WWII vet, drank himself to death over many years. Times haven’t changed, perhaps the instrument of death has...
I am sorry for any veteran in trouble but does anyone know how this number compares to the population as a whole adjusting for the specifics of age and gender? That’s the necessary element of this story.
Well, OK, how many other people commit suicide each day. What’s the point in counting veterans?
No stats comparing non military, same age, education groups against civilians.
Further, social numbers like these types are very poor quality.
Badly written and not illuminating article.
18 veterans committing suicide daily is not something that you hear about in the MSM. I thought the article was illuminating and I will research the information further.
Find the answer, let us know.
I call BS on this! Something doesn’t seem right at all about this story. It implies because of these wars people are committing the act of suicide and that’s crap!
The majority of readers on FR are adults, they can handle sources outside of the MSM.
Don't claim something is BS, just because it "doesn't seem right" to you.
Do some research, write to the Army Times and ask them about the veterans who decided that suicide was their only way out.
Got to leave for work...will write later
They didn’t commit suicide. The horrors of war killed them. It gets in your mind and doesn’t leave.
What is the civilian rate? Same age, income, education?
By and large, everything I have read is that all things equal, the mil rate is lower than the civ rate.
Kind of suspicious that the Socialists would leave out comparative stats, eh?
Then you ask everyone you know who has been to the Middle East since 2001 how many fellow vets have attempted suicide. When you discover the likely answer of zero, then you start questioning more.
If someone locates a vet somewhere in the hinterland who has attempted or succeeded at suicide, you ask what else may have led to it.
My gut tells me this is a report written by someone with way, way, way too little real work to do.
And even if the numbers can be explained and are true, what’s the big deal here? War is all hell... where are the suicide rates from Vietnam? From Korea? From WWII? Point one: When we have wars we usually have MORE vets. Point two: When you see things like children being used as bombs, it just might cause a few problems with healthy people. The fact that World Socialist Web site would try and use such sad news for their own propaganda says more about their twisted motives than anything the US is or is not doing.
You fool. If you use the new Obamath, it adds up perfectly. Obamath is the new math being taught by the teachers’ union to our children. It helps make the new budget add up and it makes great cents.
the Army must be doing something right, because the rate of suicide is actually lower–yes, I said lower–than that of a comparable civilian population.Yes, you heard me right, I said the suicide rate is lower in the Army than in a similar civilian population.
I know the headlines suggest otherwise, but that is because they are comparing the suicide rate in the US Army (17 per 100 000 population), as compared to the suicide rate of all civilians of all age groups (rate 11.5 per 100 000 population).
The dirty little secret is that men succeed in suicide a lot more than women, so by comparing apples (young men) to organges (adding women to the statistics) you can make the Army look bad.
Here is a pdf file of 2005 suicide statistics.
Here are a few details that are mentioned by the reports, but in a way that you might overlook them, especially if you are like most people and only read the top of the story.
One, the suicide rate in the Army is 17, but in young civilian men is 20.5.
Two:Read paragraph 2 of the Washington Post story I quoted. The article admits that two thirds of the suicides have not served in Iraq or Afghanistan, meaning that these suicides were not related to the war.
http://www.bloggernews.net/19471
LOL...nice shot there. So by pointing out that you're linking to a communist website I am a child. There used to be standards here.
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