Iraq Veterans vulnerable to commit suicide

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The Statue of Liberty is more a domestic representation, actually. And America has done both ill and good in the world.
 
Depends on who you ask:

Earlier this year, using the clout that only major broadcast networks seem capable of mustering, CBS News contacted the governments of all 50 states requesting their official records of death by suicide going back 12 years. They heard back from 45 of the 50. From the mountains of gathered information, they sifted out the suicides of those Americans who had served in the armed forces. What they discovered is that in 2005 alone — and remember, this is just in 45 states — there were at least 6,256 veteran suicides, 120 every week for a year and an average of 17 every day.

http://www.truthnews.us/?p=1010
 
Buffalo Roam: "the Liberals cut and run, quit and waste the lives of those they helped send into the war"

That's an unusually large pile of steaming crap. I, and untold thousands of other concerned and patriotic Americans from all walks of life -and from all political persuasions- marched in Washington, wrote to our local papers, lobbied, petitioned, and did everything we could lawfully do in order to spare our troops and our nation this horrific disgrace.. since before this entirely foreseeable disaster began. Then millions more of us began voting out the government, and we're not done yet: We're not stopping until even you won't be buffaloed by the lies of your favorite authority-figures.
 
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quadraphonics said:
Without seeing the numbers for any other countries, it's difficult to tell whether those numbers are remarkable or not.

Turns out that the country with the world's highest suicide rate is.... (drumroll please)... India!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3590847.stm
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Whoops.

No reason to disbelieve those stats, frankly, since there's no political partisanship behind their collection. Unless....the Americans skewed them in some kind of plot to throw off their disapproval rating? Ah! Always a way - eh, Sam?
 
Greg Mitchell at Huffington Post is providing regular stories on this issue:
For the past five years, since shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I have chronicled -- often a lonely pursuit -- the deaths of nearly one thousand U.S. military personnel who have died in that war from "non-hostile" causes. These include deaths from illness, accident, friendly fire and suicide. The suicide rate has surged in the past few years, as multiple tours increased, and this has always seemed especially haunting for me.
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It's a shame how much these tragedies are ignored, and how even higher-profile cases such as the death of Col. Westhusing offer a grim but largely-ignored message to us.
 
At multiple levels, the US military, media, and society in general have been covering up, or deliberately overlooking the deplorable rise in veteran suicides.

Dr. [Ira] Katz lied about the numbers before the House of Representatives Veterans' Affairs Committee, grossly understating the number of such suicide attempts. He testified that the number for all of 2007 was 790. He also neglected the Army's own "Suicide Event Report," which disclosed that 2006 saw the highest rate of military suicides in 26 years!

CBS News did its own extensive research, finding that more than 6,250 American veterans took their own lives in 2005 alone. That comes to slightly more than 17 suicides every day.

...

• 120 veterans commit suicide every week.

• 1,000 veterans attempt suicide while in VA care every month.

• Nearly one in five service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan (approximately 300,000) have post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms or major depression.

• 19 percent of post-Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been diagnosed with possible traumatic brain injury, according to a Rand Corp. Study in April.

• A higher percentage of these veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder than from any previous war because of "stop loss" or an involuntary extension of service in the military (58,300), multiple tours, greater prevalence of brain injuries, etc.
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These losses should not be so ignored and neglected on Memorial, or any other day.
 
Medical Doctors do not have a higher suicide rate than the members of our US military today. Before the numbers were called into question, the officially-reported Army suicide rate was 17.3 per 100,000 in 2006. In the article you linked, it was mentioned that "Each year between 300 and 400 doctors take their lives". We're looking at (or looking past) more than 6,000 veteran suicides and attempted suicides, and over 2,000 on active duty, per year lately.

I'll see if I can find some clearer statistics for the comparison you're making, John99:

CBS
increasing number of veterans who recently received VA services ... and still succeeded in committing suicide: rising from 1,403 suicides in 2001 to 1,784 in 2005 - figures the VA has never made public.
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CNN

Washington Post

Bloomberg:post-War Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths, U.S. Says
 
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Determinations of suicide are always questionable. Dont throw any straw men at me because in know how the media tell "stories" to make a story. I am not saying it is not possible but dont take this the wrong way but i dont take what you say at face value or for that matter the media either.

17.3 per 100,000
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So IF those numbers are accurate then what is it regarding per 100,000 medical doctors and that number includes ALL doctors.
 
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Read the links I've posted, and you'll find reason to suspect 17.3/100,000 is an understatement.

Anyway, let's find out about doctor vs. veteran suicides:

I'm still looking for comparable data, which isn't easy...

The pattern is deny, deny, deny... then when facts seemingly come to disagree with the denial, you cover up, cover up, cover up.
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-Bob Filner, D-California, Chairman, House Veterans Committee
 
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Why dont we find out how often hypewaders can ..............:bravo:

Just kidding:(
 
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John99: "Just kidding"

Well, I'm not. If we really do "Support Our Troops", then we should take these numbers, and their suspicious obscurity very seriously. I'm having a difficult time empirically comparing soaring veteran suicides with any other specific occupation, but it's becoming increasingly apparent to me that our present military veterans are suffering much higher rates of suicide than is evident in any other occupation.
 
hypewaders said:
John99: "Just kidding"

Well, I'm not. If we really do "Support Our Troops", then we should take these numbers, and their suspicious obscurity very seriously. I'm having a difficult time empirically comparing soaring veteran suicides with any other specific occupation, but it's becoming increasingly apparent to me that our present military veterans are suffering much higher rates of suicide than is evident in any other occupation.
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But you dont support them at all.:shrug:
 
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