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349 Suicides in the US Military Last Year

I'd be interested to see 1) the total population of US military members considered and 2) the number of suicides relative to the average rate of civilian suicides.
 
I would be curious to know how many retired military members committed suicide. We had a house painter that suffered from PTSD related to Vietnam that ended up killing himself.

My brother was at his MOS school and the kid on guard duty at the armory had smuggled in a cell phone. He called his GF and she dumped him so he put his M-4 on three shot burst and pulled the trigger.
 
It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room no one wants to talk about or even acknowledge. The lack of health and mental care for our military isn't just shameful, sad, and pathetic. It's criminal. We can bail out goddamned banks and car companies but can't do a damn thing for our soldiers.
 
94Deac said:
It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room no one wants to talk about or even acknowledge. The lack of health and mental care for our military isn't just shameful, sad, and pathetic. It's criminal. We can bail out goddamned banks and car companies but can't do a damn thing for our soldiers.
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yup
 
94Deac said:
It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room no one wants to talk about or even acknowledge. The lack of health and mental care for everybody isn't just shameful, sad, and pathetic. It's criminal. We can bail out goddamned banks and car companies but can't do a damn thing for our soldiers.
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FIFY. Mental health care in this country is abysmal, and we keep shutting down mental health facilities.
 
I've dealt with suicides on both of my deployments. It is heartbreaking.

I'll never forget being assigned to go through and inventory the personal effects of an NCO who killed himself during a deployment to Bosnia in 1996-1997. Sitting on his bunk and going through through his things, with his Soldiers sitting around me on their bunks and looking at me as if I was some sort of vulture, is something I never want to repeat.

Edited to add: The tags for this thread are not cool or funny.
 
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DEACisGO said:
I'd be interested to see 1) the total population of US military members considered and 2) the number of suicides relative to the average rate of civilian suicides.
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I bet suicides for enlisted and ex armed services are substantially higher than civilian rates. like wayyyyy higher.
 
Some real quick unchecked stats I pulled off line show 1.3MM active military personnel, so if you have 359 suicides that's like 27/100000. Other real quick, unchecked stats show the suicide rate in the US is right around 12/100000
 
It's next to impossible to track suicide rates once a service member leaves active service - and obviously, that's when most people have the most trouble. Even if the veteran in question is enrolled in the VA and it's definitively determined to be a suicide, the VA doesn't release cause of death.

The root of this issue (and others) is that it's not mandatory for departing service members to enroll in the VA. (It's something like 50% of current-era vets do, even less for previous generations.) We simply don't have the money for it and the VA healthcare system is already overwhelmed, which is why we shouldn't start bullshit wars with unclear paths to how they end, but that's a mistake humanity's been repeating for thousands of years.

So long story short, these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. It's much, much worse, and I fear it'll continue to get worse as Iraq and A'Stan vets get older and farther away from the built-in support systems of active military service.
 
IrishSlim said:
It's next to impossible to track suicide rates once a service member leaves active service - and obviously, that's when most people have the most trouble. Even if the veteran in question is enrolled in the VA and it's definitively determined to be a suicide, the VA doesn't release cause of death.

The root of this issue (and others) is that it's not mandatory for departing service members to enroll in the VA. (It's something like 50% of current-era vets do, even less for previous generations.) We simply don't have the money for it and the VA healthcare system is already overwhelmed, which is why we shouldn't start bullshit wars with unclear paths to how they end, but that's a mistake humanity's been repeating for thousands of years.

So long story short, these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. It's much, much worse, and I fear it'll continue to get worse as Iraq and A'Stan vets get older and farther away from the built-in support systems of active military service.
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Great post.
 
Baconwfu said:
Some real quick unchecked stats I pulled off line show 1.3MM active military personnel, so if you have 359 suicides that's like 27/100000. Other real quick, unchecked stats show the suicide rate in the US is right around 12/100000
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The suicide epidemic has also engulfed the Reserve component. As of September 25, 2012, there were 80 suspected suicides among non-mobilized National Guard and Army Reserve Soldiers during FY 2012. http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/09/army-suicides-steepest-challenge-092512/
 
My brother is a marine reserve and the numbers of DUIs and failed drug tests in his unit were staggering in the months after their deployment.

He had to register with the VA but I believe that's because of being wounded in A'stan.
 
The numbers recently published are for all active duty service members and reserve component people who had served on active duty during the year.

I'm not sure of how they calculated the numbers, but the suicide rate within the military surpassed the general public rate about a year ago, IIRC. I remember this because they responded with additional typical, reactionary, bureaucratic suicide prevention training that - of course - does little good in actually, ya know, preventing suicides.

The issues with the VA are related, but not identical, to those that play into active duty military suicides. I can't speak for the VA, but two things that the military health care system really has taken seriously in the last few years have been TBI and suicides. Even casually mention either of those things, and there are entire teams of people that go into crisis lockdown mode - and often appropriately so. The all-too-often problem is that the people in need are not reaching the available resources.

Part of that continues to be a cultural problem. Mental health issues are still considered to be an issue of weakness, rather than disease, by too many. Another issue is that the screening tests and other safeguards designed to catch these problems - in a word - suck. They rely almost entirely on self-reporting, which just isn't a good way to go about it, especially in light of the associated stigma. Ideally, there would be a consequence-free system whereby buddy-reporting could take place, if only these 20 year old jokers wouldn't abuse it just to fuck with their friends.

Lastly, so much of the suicide issue was thought to revolve around deployments and a high operational tempo. Accordingly, people who deploy have received the lion's share of the suicide-oriented screening and treatment. However, the recent statistics show that nearly 1/3 of people who commit suicide never deployed, much less did so recently. And - of course - the suicide rate has continued to be a huge issue even after withdrawing from Iraq and slowing things down in Afghanistan.

I don't think anyone really knows what's going on, but the statistics suggest that military service alone - independent of deployments/TBI - is now a risk factor for suicide. And that needs to be stopped and reversed immediately.
 
94Deac said:
It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room no one wants to talk about or even acknowledge. The lack of health and mental care for our military isn't just shameful, sad, and pathetic. It's criminal. We can bail out goddamned banks and car companies but can't do a damn thing for our soldiers.
Click to expand...

IrishSlim said:
It's next to impossible to track suicide rates once a service member leaves active service - and obviously, that's when most people have the most trouble. Even if the veteran in question is enrolled in the VA and it's definitively determined to be a suicide, the VA doesn't release cause of death.

The root of this issue (and others) is that it's not mandatory for departing service members to enroll in the VA. (It's something like 50% of current-era vets do, even less for previous generations.) We simply don't have the money for it and the VA healthcare system is already overwhelmed, which is why we shouldn't start bullshit wars with unclear paths to how they end, but that's a mistake humanity's been repeating for thousands of years.

So long story short, these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. It's much, much worse, and I fear it'll continue to get worse as Iraq and A'Stan vets get older and farther away from the built-in support systems of active military service.
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With all due respect, the notion that we can't pay for mental health services for veterans - or the population at large - is a load of bullshit. We're paying for it now already. It's just that we're paying for it via the criminal justice system. The jurisdiction where I work has started a Veteran's Court just within the last year. The Mental Health Court, which I work with extensively, has a number of participants who are veterans. What doesn't make any sense is that we wait for people who need help to commit crimes, get saddled with criminal records, and often times victimize innocent members of society (a large number of whom are friends & family who are trying to help the person) before we bother to do anything about it. Just as with any other form of health care, it is far more efficient to do it as preventative care than after the fact.
 
I'm with you, man. Take it up with the budget peeps. The fact remains, however, that under its current budget, the VA absolutely could not afford to care for 100% of honorably discharged veterans. It's indisputable. It's also morally repugnant, but here we are. (It also doesn't help that the VA is a fucking joke of a bureaucracy.)

Big fan of veterans courts. Read a great piece in the Atlantic about it last year, and one of my former Joes is (so far) a success story of the model one in Buffalo. Here's hoping the micro trends of success extend to the macro.

ETA: Link the Atlantic article here
 
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I understand from the above posts that one factor behind these sad statistics is that the needed health care is lacking. And I would not dispute that. But I have an additional question that might precede the health care issue. Is it just the stress of the life without the adequate psychological support, or could these dismal statistics also have to do with the type of individuals who volunteer for the military, or perhaps both?
 
my guess is lots of factors: desensitization of death, immersion in weapons, a helluva lotta stress. plus a lot who join the armed services don't have a lot of options anyway and often come from impoverished/broken homes so I'd imagine that's already an at risk group.
 
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