The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Slog: War

More Than 2,700 American Soldiers Have Killed Themselves Since 2001

Christopher Frizzelle — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:54:07 -0700

That's not counting veterans and it's not counting "National Guard and reserve troops who were not on active duty when they committed suicide," according to this haunting piece of reporting in today's New York Times, entitled "Baffling Rise in Suicides Plagues U.S. Military." But make no mistake: Suicides among veterans have risen too. The number of veterans who kill themselves is an unbelievable 22 per day, according to the Department of Vetern Affairs.

As for the active-duty soldiers, a "dauntingly complex web of factors" figures into the data about why they commit suicide. While "troops with multiple concussions were significantly more likely to report having suicidal thoughts" than others, "deployment and combat by themselves cannot explain the spiking suicide rates."

Pentagon data show that in recent years about half of service members who committed suicide never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. And more than 80 percent had never been in combat.

That doesn't fit the assumptions I had about military suicides. After reading the story I texted my brother—who was an officer in the Army for three years, ending in 2011, including a tour of duty in Iraq—to get his perspective. Why would the suicide rate be so high even among guys who'd never been in combat? My brother responded:

Because regardless of what they're called or what "stage" we're in, we're still at war. Being in a war zone for 9+ months is unbelievably stressful even if you're not in combat. Not to mention, you work 15 hours a day and get 0 days off, which is tough even in a regular job for that amount of time. You have no social life, and people are social beings. You just become numb mentally and emotionally. I was for months after I came back and my deployment wasn't that bad compared to some. One of my guys killed himself a week after we got back. He seemed fine.

The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Slog: War

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