[iowamark]

Turner said his investigation found evidence of a poor command climate inside the Houston battalion, which has lost four recruiters to suicide since 2005, including two who hanged themselves within weeks of each other last year. All four soldiers had served in Iraq or Afghanistan before being reassigned to recruiting duty, a job considered one of the most stressful in the Army, especially during wartime.

All suicides are tragic. But are military suicide rates really that much higher than civilians in similar high stress jobs?

[The Pack Knight]

Probably not. I used to hear about how many suicides happened at Fort Greely, but it was never really a higher percentage than exists anywhere else around the Arctic Circle.

Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if suicide rates at Basic were higher than the civilian population, but that probably has a lot more to do with what was going on in the recruit’s life before they got there than with anything that goes on during their training. After all, a lot of people do join the Army for the wrong reasons, unfortunately.

[Doctor Raoul]

But are military suicide rates really that much higher than civilians in similar high stress jobs?

Based on all the other "bad news" that the media hypes about the troops, I'd bet no.

Even with the stress of deployment, combat and family separation, suicides in the military is less than society as a whole.

Likewise all the stories where the media and the left wished to portray our returning troops as murderers, that they were ticking timebombs.

It's the same rhetoric and belief system they used to destroy the Vietnam generation of vets.