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MOre on the human cost of war: Veteran suicide statistics

Military Personnel Account for 20% of U.S. Suicides (Update2)

By Tom Randall and Rob Waters

April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Current and former military personnel accounted for about 20 percent of U.S. suicides in 2005, according to a government study.

About 1,821 current or former soldiers committed suicide in 16 states in 2005, the most recent year of available data, according to the report published today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost half were diagnosed with depression and a third left suicide notes.

A rise in suicides among soldiers serving in the military has alarmed Pentagon planners and members of Congress as the war in Iraq enters its sixth year. An Army report produced last year found the rate of suicides among soldiers deployed in Iraq from 2003 to 2006 was almost 40 percent higher than the military's average suicide rate. An update of the Army's Mental Health Advisory Team report released in March found suicide rates for soldiers in 2007 remained ``above normal Army rates.''

``The frequency and the length of deployments are stretching people to the limit and they can't tolerate it,'' Charles Figley, a psychologist who directs the Traumatology Institute at Florida State University, said in a telephone interview today. ``They're taking risks, taking alcohol and taking their own lives because they want to extinguish their pain.''

While 38 percent of the soldiers who took their own lives had a diagnosed mental health condition, only 27 percent were receiving mental health care, according to the CDC report.

30,000 Suicides

Each year 30,000 Americans commit suicide, according to the CDC. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people ages 25 to 34, after accidental injury, according to today's report, the first from an electronic tracking system meant to help researchers better understand and prevent violent death. The U.S. plans to expand the system to all states, the CDC said.

Suicide accounted for about 56.1 percent of the 15,495 reported violent deaths in the 16 states. Fewer military suicide victims were receiving mental health care than non-military victims, the report said. Violent deaths in the report were caused by intentional use of force or unintended use of a gun.

About three-quarters of all suicides recorded by the CDC took place in a house or apartment. Most victims killed themselves with a gun, followed by poisoning and strangulation, according to the study. About 62 percent had alcohol in their blood.

Men were 3.4 times more likely than women to die violently. American Indians and blacks had the highest rates among ethnicities, the CDC said.

A separate study last year found that combat veterans were twice as likely to take their own lives as people who hadn't been in battle. That study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, looked at 320,000 men who had served in the military from 1917 to 1994.

Impeachment Toolkit: Allen Roland on PTSD and vets .. MUST READ

Believe me, this article is CHILLING. With well-armed, desperate troops, very badly damaged and a declaration of MARTIAL LAW and a drive to push people to accept the "domestic mercenaries" option ..

Things will be HELL .. I mean it . LITERAL HELL ON EARTH.

There is NO rule of law at present - merely a two-tiered justice system in place in both the US and in Canada.

There is a failure of WILL to implement proper public policy - even as Baghdad falls. The huge huge soul sickness that envelops us is a disaster in the making.

Allen knows well what he is talking about about PTSD, and I have posted his great articles on healing from PTSD previously.

As the theocracy comes forward to claim control of the government, just consider the very real possibilities .. and the US is already BROKE .. and all this information is applicable to Afghani vets here in Canada as well.

I wrote my warnings about this on OpED quite a while ago -

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_virginia_070620_
about_bloody_time_2c_b.htm

The PR goes on and on and on - the Cheney ripoffs of US taxpayer funds to "reconstruct" Iraq and Afghanistan for Halliburton/KBR citadels continues. Reconstruction funds (see my SIGIR/Stuart Bowen links) continue to go missing.

And those who suffer grave physical and moral problems continue to get little or nothing. ENOUGH!! Keep the spotlight on this issue!!

I know ALL about PTSD - I have ALL seventeen symptoms. It's horrifying and can make you completely dysfunctional. No, I get no help up here in Canada although I suffer from it, save from my GP.

We have TONS of work to do ahead of us to heal as nations from these bloody, bloody soul destroying wars brought on by NEOCONS, and paid for by US, the taxpayers and productive people (and you do not need to be a vet or a taxpayer to be productive, either!!) New public health policies cannot be ignored at a US federal level, that is for SURE.

All I can say is this - FOR SHAME! Bring on the ICC hearings and bring them on SOON!!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_ladybroa_080215_
special_prosecutor_i.htm

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/global-people-for-the-impeachment-
of-richard-cheney
Please sign this impeachment petition!

Bring a focus on ALL the problems.

Send pennies, dimes, nickels and $500 bills to IAVA.org. Let them have a platform everywhere. They do a GREAT JOB, as I often say.

While BuZh and buddies (Michael Mukasey for one) allow torturous tasers to proliferate and Big Pharma continues to see POISONS in the form of atypical antipsychotics and suicide-inducing antidepressants, this is what is TRULY GOING ON!! It is HORRIFYING. Let the vets who have committed WAR CRIMES long and loudly and GRIEVE what they have done - But DON'T let them commit suicide from lack of funding or lack of concern on our parts.

Please. My own son went on mainstream TV on this issue. Now he has lost his wife and his children .. and no, he does not speak with me. That doesn't matter, I love him anyway and have NO desire to see him suffer. NONE. Particularly not in THIS horrific way. He is my SON and those are my grandchildren - the future of AMERICA with valuable BLOOD And ties to American soil who need to know their FULL HISTORY.

Help me help them. I say this again, PLEASE.

So much damage, so much healing to be done .. things to cry long and deeply about. The Empire is falling . is this what we want America's (and Canada's) "legacy" to look like as it sinks deeper into the morality void for its citizens?

Veeger

THE WALKING DEAD / P.T.S.D. REVISITED by Allen L Roland http://www.opednews.com

Army 1st Lt. Jullian Philip Goodrum in his room in the Mologne House at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Goodrum suffers from PTSD. Nina Berman / Redux

Our European friends clearly see Bush for what he really is and what we refuse to acknowledge ~ a moral coward masquerading as a world leader. Posed on his wooden horse of hubris he has become a modern day Don Quixote flailing away at the windmills of the evil world he himself has created and remaining in deliberate denial of the human chaos and unneccessary deaths he is reponsible for: Allen L Roland

And so our troops trudge on ~ fighting an enemy they can't see, fighting for an illegal occupation they don't believe in, fighting to stay moral and sane in a foreign country where they are despised and hated ~ is it any wonder that they turn suicidal when Bush extends or demands another tour so that he will not have to face his incredible moral failure on his own watch.

They have, in essence, become cannon fodder for Cheney and Bush's failed criminal neocon pipe dream. Is it any wonder that they can see no way out ~ particularly in light of a timid self serving Congress who refuses to listen to the vast majority of Americans who want them sent home now.

And get this ~ Last year, the VA's Inspector General issued a report estimating that 1,000 veterans under its care commit suicide every year.

They are, indeed, the walking dead and Aaron Glantz gives us a short update on this nightmare scenario.

Allen L Roland

http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/03/30.html

Suicidal and Facing a Third Tour in IraBy Aaron Glantz

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17724.htm

05/17/07 - -- -SAN FRANCISCO, May 15 (IPS) - At the beginning of May, Corporal Cloy Richards tried to kill himself.

He punched out all his windows and cut major arteries," his mother Tina Richards told IPS. "He had to go to the hospital because he almost bled to death."

loy Richards, who lives in rural Salem, Missouri, has served two deployments in the Marine Corps in Iraq. The military lists him as 80-percent combat disabled.

His mother says he has knee and arm injuries, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, and currently has a claim pending with the Army for a traumatic brain injury.

"It's something that affects us every single day," Tina said, "when he's 23 years old and he can't even climb the stairs. He has bad nightmares where he thinks he's back in Iraq."

Richards said her son sustained most of his injuries after his first tour in Iraq, adding that the family protested his second deployment to no avail. After four years on active duty, Cloy Richards is now in the individual ready reserve and faces the possibility of a third deployment to Iraq.

New guidelines released by the Pentagon in December allow commanders to redeploy soldiers suffering from traumatic stress disorders

According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, service-members with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a "treatable" problem.

PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to an event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. A person having a flashback may lose touch with reality and believe that the traumatic incident is happening all over again.

"It's just terrifying," said Dr. Karen Seal, a clinician at San Francisco's Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centre who treats soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological illnesses.

Seal told IPS that patients under her care have been deployed despite serious mental health conditions.

"I feel like writing them a medical excuse," she said, "but that's not my responsibility as a VA clinician. Because I'm a VA provider, I don't have the authority to do that."

According to a study co-authored by Seal and her colleagues at the Centre, about one- third of the more than 100,000 returning veterans seen at VA facilities between Sep. 30, 2001 and Sep. 30, 2005 were diagnosed with mental illness or a psycho-social disorder such as homelessness and marital problems, including domestic violence. Over half suffered from more than one disorder.

Other researchers suggest those statistics may only represent the tip of the iceberg. Many veterans, they note, don't come forward to seek care. The stigma associated with post- traumatic stress disorder may account for part of this gap, they say.

In addition, according to recent report by Linda Bilmes of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, waiting lists for returning veterans are "so long as to effectively deny treatment to a number of veterans."

In the May 2006 edition of Psychiatric News, Bilmes notes that VA Undersecretary of Health Policy Coordination Frances Murphy wrote that when services are available, "waiting lists render that care virtually inaccessible."

There is also the issue of geography.

"One of the disconnects and failures in planning for this war is that the Veterans Administration is essentially configured in an urban way," Bilmes told IPS. "That makes a lot of sense for recruiting specialists and staffing the facilities. However, recruiting for the military in this war tends to come primarily from small, rural America. So, what we don't have is enough mental health care for veterans in these rural communities when they come home."

Last Thursday, the VA's Inspector General issued a report estimating that 1,000 veterans under its care commit suicide every year.

The report also found that vets are at increased risk of suicide because many VA clinics don't have 24-hour care or adequate mental health screening, and lack properly trained personnel.

The report, which was requested last year by Rep. Michael Michaud, a Democrat of Maine, said clinics should work harder so veterans can seek treatment without feeling stigmatised, and recommended additional screening for patients with traumatic brain injury, a type of brain damage caused by projectiles like roadside bombs which many are calling the "signature injury" of the Iraq war.

"The problem is that traumatic brain injury, which is an anatomic, physiologic problem, sort of intermingles with post-traumatic stress disorder," Dr. William Schecter, the chief of surgery at San Francisco General Hospital, explained to IPS. "This is going to be a lifelong challenge for the individuals who have suffered these injuries." (END/2007)

Activism;: watch MTV Thursday on Vets

Be sure to watch Choose or Lose Presents: Clinton & Obama Answer Young Veterans on MTV, Thursday at 6pm EST (Senator McCain is in Iraq this week and was unable to participate). Several IAVA member veterans are participating in the discussion.

A G.I. Bill For The 21st Century

In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the "Servicemen's Readjustment Act" -- the original G.I. Bill -- which ultimately allowed more than eight million combat veterans returning from the battlefields of World War II to receive full college tuition, low-cost mortgages, and living costs. Because of this bill, these veterans served as "the engine of opportunity in the postwar years." Unfortunately, the program FDR signed into law has since been scaled back, and with college tuition and fees across the country skyrocketing, G.I. Bill benefits today fall far short of actual costs. In fact, "the most a veteran can receive is approximately $9,600 a year for four years," which "covers only 60-70% of the average cost of four years at a public college or university, or less than two years at a typical private college." Thus, after surviving combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, returning veterans are having difficulty surviving the financial burdens of higher education. Sens. Jim Webb (D-VA) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) recently wrote that today's G.I. Bill is "a reasonable enlistment incentive for peacetime service, but it is an insufficient reward for wartime service today." Indeed, on his first official day in office in January 2007, Webb introduced Senate Bill 22 -- "a mirror of the World War II G.I. Bill" -- in an effort to bridge the gap between today's G.I. benefits and rising tuitions costs. While Webb's measure has since stalled, a bipartisan Senate coalition including Webb, Hagel, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Sen. John Warner (R-VA) yesterday reintroduced a revised version of S. 22 (H.R. 2707) to advance a "21st Century G.I. Bill."

NEW G.I. BILL BETTER FOR VETS: The new version of the bill "would be available to all members of the military who have served on active duty since September 11, 2001." Reservists and National Guard members -- who now get a fraction of the benefits available to active-duty troops -- will also be included in the bill. Eligible veterans would receive education benefits equaling the highest tuition rate of the most expensive in-state public college or university and provide a monthly stipend for housing determined by geographical area. Beyond that, S. 22 "would create a program in which the government would provide a dollar-for-dollar match to contributions from private educational institutions with higher tuition rates than those covered under the bill." Veterans would also have 15 years to use their educational assistance, compared to 10 years under the current law. The new G.I. bill "is projected to cost about $2.5 billion per year," roughly the cost of U.S. operations in Iraq for one week.

MONEY FOR WAR, NOT VETERANS: In last month's State of the Union address, President Bush proposed expanding the transferability of "unused education benefits to their spouses or children," but the budget he submitted to Congress a week later "included no funding for such an initiative." Moreover, the White House and the Pentagon have so far shown resistance to Webb's bill "out of fear that too many will use it." Robert Clarke, assistant director of accessions policy at the Department of Defense, said "the incentive to serve and leave" may "outweigh the incentive to have them stay." According to Clarke, "it is simply off-base to compare what was offered to World War II veterans to the situation today. There was no concern about retention rates back then." In testimony to Congress last summer, other Defense Department officials said that "the current program for active duty is basically sound and serves its purpose in support of the all-volunteer force. The department finds no need for the kind of sweeping (and expensive) changes offered." Giacomo Mordente III, former president of the National Association of Veterans' Program Administrators, said: "The administration always has an unlimited budget to go to war. But when it comes time to help the people, the casualties of the war, they do whatever they can to limit liability."

NEW G.I. BILL IS A BETTER RECRUITMENT TOOL: The Boston Globe noted that the "promise of an education in return for serving the country is one of the most frequently cited reasons that young men and women join the military." However, "[t]he limited return on the promise is one of the most common sources of bitterness and frustration that emerge in interviews with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans." One returning Iraq veteran cited recruitment ads saying: "Don't worry. College is taken care of." Yet the veteran quickly added, "[I]t is not true." Patrick Campbell of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of American (IAVA) said the $20,000, $30,000, even $40,000 enlistment bonus checks are "not a good investment." The IAVA says the new G.I. Bill "is a practical answer to the military's troop shortage" and that "[r]ather than continuing to spend billions in bonuses for lower-standard enlistees, increasing G.I. Bill benefits would encourage high-aptitude young people to join the military." Indeed, the veterans organization cited "a 1988 Congressional study show[ing] that every dollar spent on educational benefits under the original GI Bill added seven dollars to the national economy in terms of productivity, consumer spending and tax revenue."

ACTIVISM: IAVA's new legislative agenda

Anyone - and there surely aren't enough - who reads me regularly knows my PET CAUSE.

Iran Afghanistan Veteran's Association. I actually sit with my heart bleeding openly and BEG the reader to give them MONEY!!

Yes, a dollar spent on them has bring this regime/this bloodless coup/this relentless junta faster to the end.

If there is one single cause that deservers your support right now to end suffering this is it.

That and freedetainee.org - just think of coming home after a tour of duty doing Dirty Dick's dirty work and then becoming homeless, without medical attention, no chance of improving your life .. and the media spinning away that all veteran's beefs with their situation being of a thing of the imagination as Bill O'Reilly has done.

THIS ORGANIZATION DOES SUPERIOR WORKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

Something we should all feel proud off - send Paul and the guys some bucks. Do it today .. spread around their fantastic legislative proposals and show them to your buinesss friends, your loved ones and learn them til you know the whole agenda by heart!!



Dear Virginia,

Today, IAVA is releasing our 2008 Legislative Agenda, which presents concrete actions Congress can take to support the men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From improved mental health care to the funding of a new GI Bill, IAVA will work with Congress every step of the way to achieve success for veterans and their families. Please take a minute to help by sending our Legislative Agenda to your local representatives.

Since our founding in 2004, IAVA has been at the forefront of the new veterans' movement. We have worked closely with Congressional offices on both sides of the aisle to respond to armor shortages, rising rates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the bureaucratic challenges faced by wounded troops. Our work continues in 2008.

Starting on Monday, IAVA Member Veterans will be attending meetings with dozens of Senators and Representatives on Capitol Hill. They will be armed with our 2008 Legislative Agenda and valuable first-hand knowledge of the issues veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan deal with every day.

Help us in Washington next week by sending our Legislative Agenda to your local representatives. Tell them to make veterans' priorities their priorities.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Paul Rieckhoff
Iraq Veteran
Executive Director
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

Paul Rieckhoff Discusses Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act

"This is the way we treat our heros"

ACTIVISM REQUIRED: Homeless vets need your help again!!

I seriously, seriously try to stay out of the Bill O'Reilly "items" when I see them - but this one must be taken up. PRONTO!!

Boy, aren't we all BUSHY these days??

Oh, I meant BUSY.

So many activist issues to do, so much information to be taken.

And as comment that doing this just helps "just" the homeless vets? Well, taking these actions helps you, too.

Remember: there are more of US than there are of THEM, is as good a mantra in 2008 as it was in 2007. So let's join our choruses together. We are all getting abused, royally abused.

As for O'Reilly -

have him come up here and I'll show HIM a bridge or two!!

(as my mother might have said ...)

Once again, send the IAVA yer buck$. There is an appeal letter from them on here. If any organization gives you yer buck$ worth for the dollar$ invested, this is the one. I made a few typos in that appeal; please forgive them, but the sentiment is really heartfelt. No one who thought that the were defending democracy (a "noble cause") nor needed to enter the military for financial reasons or was just the victim of brainwashing deserves to suffer the way so very many of today's veteran's do. If we don't act on their behalf, who's going to? The administration? Congress? The lame brain presidential candidates? Give me a break!!

I totally applaud the IAVA once again; they really know how to take advantage of high profile media opportunities!! BRAVO!!

Veeger

Dear Virginia,

Last night, Bill O'Reilly raised an important topic on his television show: the plight of homeless veterans.

Unfortunately, he got the facts wrong.

O'Reilly: "They (homeless veterans) may be out there, but there's not many of them out there. Okay?...If you know where there is a veteran, sleeping under a bridge, you call me immediately, and we will make sure that man does not do it."

Despite O'Reilly's doubts, the facts are irrefutable. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, almost 200,000 veterans sleep on our nation's streets each night. And Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are joining those ranks at an alarming rate.

Click here to sign an open letter to Bill O'Reilly, telling him that he needs to set the record straight as soon as possible. This issue is far too important to be swept under the rug. You can also learn more about the issue of homeless veterans, and find out what you can do to help.

As an IAVA Supporter, you're more familiar with this issue than most people.

Sadly, many Americans still don't realize that veterans make up about one-third of the adult homeless population.

No matter how you feel about Bill O'Reilly, there's no denying the fact that he has a huge audience - an estimated 2.3 million people tune in each weekday night. So take a minute to urge Bill O'Reilly to correct his mistake. He has a great opportunity to help homeless veterans by bringing more attention to the issue, and you can urge him to be part of the solution. [Hammer home the above FACT, please, if you will!! I have tried to keep any reader updated on this issue as well as the REAL VA statistics on true casualties .. What a horrendous price to pay to helping maintain a falling ruling class empire, jeesh!!]

Thank you for standing with us.

Sincerely,

Paul Rieckhoff
Iraq Veteran
Executive Director
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

P.S. The site also includes more background information on the issue, along with details on how you can get involved

FUNDRAISING PITCH: Iraq Afghan Veteran's Association

Now, listen UP.

I am not one to preach - and I do practice what I preach (hey! That's novel!) .. but personally I only give my money to a couple things. One (don't gasp) is Greenpeace cuz I LIKE Them... Greenpeace does the wild things I cannot do but WOULD given a chance or if I were in better health.

I WOULDA given some money to Jason Call if I'd a had it .. and you know, that guy gave people their money back when he didn't pursue his Congressional bid, which just shows to go ya that I was right to be up on that guy.

In disaster scenario I get out my chops and ask people to donate to anything without a ex-presidential name on it and/or isn't the Red Cross or the Salvation Army.

But this time, if you have some spare change (and I do know some people who look at this blog once in a WHILE, do have a few pennies, I do RECOMMEND the expenditure of your money on the IAVA "cause" as the vets get screwed and will get screwed WORSE if they don't keep up the pressure in DC. They 've REALLY done well in my book at least - seizing opportunities as they come their way to get MAXIMUM PRESS and learning on key people in CONgress who shot off their mouths about prolonged occupation and so on.

So here is the email I just got from them .. and if you haven't got the buck$, or you have a place to put this appeal (I know, I know, you got appeals, too, it's that time of year) - do spread the WORD.

I think BuZh's veto of the budget could result in more harm to veterans. bit it is not a legal veto -- but of course we'll see about that.

In the meantime, to get the Veteran's Administration to be a bit more responsive (and IAVA's work helped get rid of the idiot at Walter Reed!) gove the guys and gals at IAVA some of your dough. They sure are good at giving ole BuZh, Cheney and the DoD a good black eye. It's not political, per se, but they do "my" cause of exposing the rot an awful lot of good.

You may feel that Vets are not being "drafted" . BUT that doesn't mean they deserve to suffer -- they do not go in KNOWING how awful this type of modern war.

It is incredible what they accomplish with so few dollars! Would it not be great to see a new GI bill? (And I abhor war. I really do.)

Veeger

Dear Virginia,

Right now, all of the attention is on Iowa. But this holiday season, people from all fifty states took action to make a real difference in the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

In the final weeks of 2007, we asked you to support our work in 2008. Hundreds of you did and we smashed through our year-end goal, raising a total of $43,860. Americans like you are helping to do extraordinary things for veterans.

Your contributions will bring veterans to Washington to meet with leading lawmakers, fund the fight for a new G.I. Bill, and build a network to create real change at the local and national levels.

Your support matters. Every email sent to Congress, every letter to the editor, and every dollar makes a difference. Take a minute to watch our updated promo video, which features just a few of the things we accomplished in 2007. Then please help us spread the word by passing the video on to five of your friends.

Thank you for being involved, and Happy New Year.

Sincerely,

Paul Rieckhoff
Iraq Veteran
Executive Director
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

P.S. Thousands of people participated in Operation New Year's Eve - sending text messages of support for our troops that were displayed on the tallest billboard in New York's Times Square:

"Wishing a Happy New Year to SPC Daniel Webb and the 3ACR in Iraq. Thank you all for doing such a great job! Stay safe, Bubba. Love you the most!

- Proud Army Mom"

"Thank you so much for all that you do and the sacrifice you are making for all of us. You are so appreciated.

- Beverly in Nashville"

For a complete recap of this innovative campaign, including video of IAVA's appearances on CNN and FOX News, click here.