Posted on 02/06/2013 9:16:10 PM PST by San Rafael Blue
Last week, I saw an article online that took my breath away. An average of Twenty Two U.S. Veterans are committing suicide each and every week! Is this true? I'm sorry, I can't refer you directly to that article, but it was not the first time I had heard something like this. I am not even sure the subject was active duty or in-active veterans, now chosing to end their lives.
In spite of my spotty data, you must admit, have you not also heard of the many service people losing hope and leaving this existance 'ahead of schedule'? I wish I knew of some way to help these people. We could pray for them, as I do. We all need to be spiritually 'love-bombed' from time to time. We could probably send money someplace too. That has become the most common default of the sympathetic American People; when in doubt, send money to someone who is in trouble. But what else?
I have'nt much surplus money, but I do have years of job experience working with mentally disabled adults. I know the disability may be temporary, due to a particular trauma, or it permanant, but not always at the same bright flare of intensity. Life can continue to develop and flower, even after a major emotional shake up. I know this personally due to certain life experiences. I now know that one usually has choices in how one choses to react to given situations. I've learned that our sense of peace and morality is often intertwoven with those around us. We have a responsiblity to those who love and depend on us to show respect for the gift of life. With that said, fellow readers, what could the average Jane or Joe do to offer help for those who defend our freedoms?
Get off the phone!
They have the worst CIC imaginable.
Days or weeks?
You already do a lot without even knowing it through your tax dollars. My new wife-to-be is actually a social worker with the VA (yeah, I know, but she’s awesome) and the statistic doesn’t surprise me. However, troubled veterans not only have easy access to help, but some of them are getting babied to an almost insane degree by VA social workers.
Some people can’t be reached no matter how hard you try. Some take advantage of those who try. It’s just the way it goes, unfortunately.
DAYS, not weeks. Sorry for the error, typing in these little blue boxes has it’s challenges for we Bi-Focal and Proud of it Tea Partiers.
Your response helps me out. I suppose it’s inevitable that some vets will take advantage of benefits offered, to where they are indulged. At least there are some methods being developed to face the problem. Some will remain too proud, but that may change over time, as the stigma or seeking help continues fade.
I’ve heard VA people complain that none of the veterans come to them until they’ve gotten in trouble somehow, which is probably indicative of self-reliant people. I’m not a veteran, but I know that I wouldn’t go to some social worker if I was having problems with things and they probably feel the same way.
Lord knows how to solve it, and like many ugly things in life, there may not really be a way to fix it, but there IS a mechanism in place to help troubled veterans for sure.
The rate is still lower than that of the general population. The highest rate is in the over 60 demographic for both vets and non vets and is often a function of illness, sometimes terminal illness.
The media however, wants to portray vets as deranged and dangerous potential killers of themselves and others.
Our military is stretched too thin. Either we need more people to volunteer or we need to scale back our overseas commitments.
Agreed. Impeaching 0bama will help solve this problem.
The Silver Star Families of America, an organization founded right here on FR is working on this very project. Would you be interested in assisting?
You may very well be correct with veterans.
But what about reserves or active duty?
Do they kill themselves so they don’t have to do another tour? Have we asked too much?
Would they consider a discharge instead of killing themselves?
Lots of questions
Few answers
Ya got me, I don’t know. I just know what I see and I see my wife-to-be doing great things sometimes and being an enabler other times. More often the latter than the former. That was all I was offering.
Having to serve multiple combat tours probably doesn’t help much.
If 22 are dying by suicide every day, that is 8008 per year, a preposterous number. Whomever wrote the article you read must not have done any fact checking.
Just this week, CNN released an article (2/2/13) [Sorry, I cannot provide the URL cite since it did not accompany the article sent to me] stating there were 325 Army “confirmed or potential” suicides in 2012, “a record” number. There were 283 in 2011.
The number of “suicides” is 2012 is 106 more than all US Army deaths (219) and “total military deaths (313) in Afghanistan”.
The numbers I mention above are Army numbers only and do not include other service branches. Even so, I cannot imagine the numbers to increase by much.
Sadly, a single death like this is tragic.
i don’t know why i’m responding to this. i just get sick of the leftist language. maybe it’s because my family is helping a disabled vet who has no one in his own family helping out.
a conservative wouldn’t even think about asking what “WE” can do. a true conservative and Christian asks what “I” can do when confronted with an authentic need. what are you going to do? look around, there’s plenty of needed (legit) vets to help.
I saw similar numbers, but we need to separate the apples (soldiers) from the oranges (veterans).
I saw similar numbers, but we need to separate the apples (soldiers) from the oranges (veterans).
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