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Wow. That's pretty low.
How many in the civilian community?
Vets have a higher suicide rate than the overwhelming majority of the general population.
Vets have a higher suicide rate than the overwhelming majority of the general population.
Really now.
Post that stat, assbrain. Love to see it.
There always have been women in the military and this kind of (rape) problem didn't exist back in the fifties and sixties.The pregnancy rate on US Navy warships is staggering. Duh...can the ignorant left make a connection between sexual abuse allegations and women sailors? WTF were we thinking when we put women to work alongside men in a combat environment?
It's a question to make you scratch your head! Who wanted to let women and wusses into the military? In a year or so, we'll be asking that question of gays.
So you think women shouldn't be in the Military completely? I don't agree with that.
But the relevant question here is what was the (prorated) suicide rate during and after WW-II? I'm asking because I don't know. I was just a boy during WW-II but I have pretty clear recollection of that era. There was a lot of death, injuries, and what then was called "battle fatigue" (PTSD), but I do not recall any outstanding problem with suicides.Wow. That's pretty low.
How many in the civilian community?
Vets have a higher suicide rate than the overwhelming majority of the general population. It's incorrect (and unpatriotic) to state otherwise.
edit: Not saying that numbers in the OP are accurate (they obviously aren't). But vets obviously have a much higher rate of PTSD than the general population. PTSD is a very big indicator of suicide rates. It's very hard for many vets to assimilate back into society once returning from war.
It's nobody's fault why they happen in the first placed. Experiencing war is one of the (if not THE most) traumatic experience a person can ever experience. It's hard for those who've never served before to relate to that (especially if they don't have close family/friends who've served before). I will never forget my grandfather waking up at the same exact time every single night for all of the years I knew him (he fought in the Battle of the Bulge). It was something he struggled with every day that I knew him.
When I joined the Marines in 1956 I think my monthly pay as an E-1 Private was somewhere around $30, and there were no enlistment bonuses. Draftees got the same (except for married ones who received an allotment). I'm not sure but I believe cadre (permanent) personnel were paid more. But today's all volunteer military personnel are paid much more than conscripts would receive, so the expense factor would balance out."the military is looking into antidepressant nasal sprays to bring down the suicide rate."Amos cited a decline in the suicide rate for combat veterans of the Marine Corps before making those comments. “What are you doing to address the alarming suicide rate among our combat veterans?” the event’s moderator asked the general, reading off pre-written questions from the NPC luncheon’s audience open to club members, reporters, and the general public. “Even with the attention of the leadership, I think all the services this year are feeling it, and I guess what I would tell everybody here is there is through no shortage of great effort and leadership on the part of all the services to try to abate this, but this year I think is going to be a tough year for all the services,” said the top Marine corps officer.
“Three years ago we hit the top of probably the most we’ve ever had since we started tracking – that’s 52. We put a full court press on the leadership, and interestingly enough, it was the young corporals and sergeants that came forward and said, ‘Let us do this,’” he added. “So we spent no shortage of effort and put together interactive videos with real Marines using the language that real Marines use, which surprised everybody we would actually put something in print like that, and the Marines talk to one another in this, and it was led by non-commissioned officers. The next year the suicide rate dropped to I think 39 from 52. Last year, it dropped to 32,” Amos said.
The Associated Press first reported on Aug. 16 that the eight suicides that the Marine Corps had in July was “its highest monthly total of 2012 and pushed its total for the year so far to 32 — equal to the Marines' total for all of 2011.” “This year we’ve gone back, and now we have the same interactive video. I mean that’s what the youngsters of today, they’re electronic, they’re learned by that as long as you don’t try to throw a bunch of garbage at them, and we got it for young officers and really [for] what I call our baby Marines – you know our brand new ones,” also said the commandant. He went on to say that even with the video and the attention of the leadership, all the services are feeling the impact of the suicide rate this year.
According to the report by the Associated Press, the Army reported that “26 active-duty soldiers killed themselves in July, compared with 12 in June,” adding that “the July total was the highest for any month since the Army began reporting suicides by month in 2009.” The 116 suicides among active duty soldiers that the Army recorded between January and July are on track to outpace the 167 that took place in 2011, the report added. There were no yearly totals provided for the Navy and the Air Force in the Aug. 16 report. It has been widely reported that the military is looking into antidepressant nasal sprays to bring down the suicide rate.
First Vietnam. Now this.
Still there are enlistments. And as long as the military is all volunteer and they keep paying bonuses I suppose they will keep coming. The only way to correct what is happening to our military (and the politicians who misuse it) is to reinstate the draft.
Nasal sprays aren't going to do it.
Reinstate the Draft? I thought the Democrats vision was to cut the Military... Now we want to add people to its ranks who don't want to be there in the first place? That, and nasal spray... Brilliant!
"One major advantage of conscription is the pool of millions of trained soldiers which eventually will reside in the civilian sector and who, if necessary, can be called up and reactivated in a matter of weeks rather than the months it takes to train raw recruits (which would have been an enormous advantage at the outset of WW-II and would have significantly shortened the Pacific campaign.) And anyone who thinks that will never be necessary is not paying attention to China."
During active conscription there still are active Reserves. The draft filled the ranks of the active Army with two-year conscripts who then became Inactive Reserves for (I believe) six years. But even after that six year Inactive obligation it wouldn't take very long to field the vast majority of those former soldiers if necessary -- and we had millions of them.The Active Reserve already fills that role many times better that trying to recycle conscripts ever could.
I don't know if you are still active or not, but if you're not how long would it take for you to fall in, ready to get busy in an emergency? And how does that response time compare with the capability of the average, soft, spoiled, untrained, contemporary American male under age 45?
The draft produces a nation of soldiers, most of whom were unhappy with their obligation but virtually all of whom would fight as fiercely in real and legitimate defense of their nation as did the conscripts of WW-II.
Then whose fault is it? Who put them in Iraq and Afghanistan? And try to respond with an approximately intelligent observation minus the personal insult, which serves only to identify you as a dimwitted adolescent masturbator.Give some thought to the perverse circumstances our troops have been exposed to during the past ten years and apply some simple reasoning. If you disagree with my conclusion an explanation of why along with some account of your own ideas would be more constructive than a stupidly adolescent ad hominem comment.Now Bush is causing suicides too...You loons are out of your friggin' minds.
If suicide is up in the Military it certainly isn't Bush's fault... You are a LOON.
Vets have a higher suicide rate than the overwhelming majority of the general population.
Really now.
Post that stat, assbrain. Love to see it.
I wish, I'd re-enlist in a heartbeat...... But then again I don't know how many heartbeats i have left.....
Even without Army data for October, the number of deaths believed to be suicides among U.S. Army personnel from January through September still surpass the combined military combat deaths in Afghanistan from January up to October 22. In 2012, there have been a total of 247 suspected suicides among Army active and reserve duty personnel. Of those, 158 have been confirmed as suicides and 89 remain under investigation.
According to the Afghanistan Index database maintained by the Brookings Institution, there have been 222 combined military deaths in 2012 among active and reserve components from hostile causes, as of Sept. 28. (p. 11 Figure 1.17) An additional 40 military fatalities were the result of non-hostile causes, which means they were fatalities not caused by the Taliban, insurgency forces or Afghan forces so-called green-on-blue attacks. Brookings compiles Operation Enduring Freedom-related statistics based on its monitoring of the Department of Defense.
Although not all combat-related deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom happened in Afghanistan, the vast majority have taken place there, especially in recent years. According to data released last Friday by the U.S. Army for the month of September, there were 15 potential suicides among active duty soldiers, which is the same number of potential suicides which occurred in August. Initially, that number was 16, but one case has since been removed from the list. Every suicide in our ranks is a tragic loss for the Army family, adversely affecting the readiness of our Army, Lt. Gen. Howard B. Bromberg, deputy chief of staff for manpower and personnel, said in a Department of Defense release.
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I absolutely agree that correct numbers are crucial to making informed decisions. Unfortunately, my relatively recent entry onto this forum prevents me from posting my sources. This is especially frustrating as I have 3 sources that support the 168 number as Active Duty only. I would submit, that in this particular instance, the Christian Science Monitor erred. As soon as I am able, I will be happy to provide my links.
What I can do is provide this text from the DoD site:
"WASHINGTON, April 23, 2010 With more than 6,000 veterans committing suicide every year - and 98 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan taking their own lives during fiscal 2009 alone -- the Department of Veterans Affairs is redoubling its outreach to veterans and promoting its toll-free suicide-prevention hotline.
National statistics show that veterans constitute about 20 percent of the 30,000 to 32,000 U.S. deaths each year from suicide. Of an average of 18 veterans who commit suicide each day, about five receive care through the VA health-care system. More than 60 percent of those five had diagnosed mental-health conditions."
These figures are accepted among both the DoD and the VA, which I will gladly demonstrate once I have hit my ability to post links. At initial glance, the fact that Veterans make up 20% of the suicide rate might seem trivial, but remember how small of a percentage of Americans make up that Veteran population and it shows to be way out of line.
