Something to think about

[unixronin]

Per USA Today:

The suicide rate in 2007 per 100,000 people for:

Total U.S. population: 11.1

People ages 25-50: 14.6

Law enforcement officers: 18

Source: Centers for Disease and Prevention, USA TODAY research

Suicide rate in 2007 per 100,000 people for serving US military personnel, including reserves: 350.  (Per a speaker on NPR about ten minutes ago.)

Think about it for a bit.  Then if you know a US serviceman or veteran ... do something nice for him or her today.  Show our troops you appreciate what they do.

UPDATE/CORRECTION:

cymrullewes was listening to the same segment, and confirms (see the comment to radarrider) that I did mishear the stat.  The correct stat was 2100 attempts, of which 300 were successful.

The bad news is, that's still 50 successful suicides per 100,000, still five times the rate for the US as a whole and three times the rate for law enforcement officers.

Comments

[lonewolf545.livejournal.com]

Remember that the core age group for the military is the same age for onset of many mental disorders, in addition to the stresses of military life. There IS stress involved with deployments, even noncombat ones (duty in Korea is generally non-accompanied, so soldiers get sent over for a year without their families, as an example). There is a significant mental adjustment between military life and civilian life, one that people who haven't worn the uniform can find difficult to understand. For a service member, even getting a sunburn can be grounds for punishment (rendering oneself unfit for duty). FWIW, many times the WORST rates for onset of PTSD are for folks who leave the military completely - they're suddenly amongst a group of people who don't understand them, while staying in the military, they have a built in support group. Oh, and some of the worst rates for such are reputedly amongst the NON-combat specialties (jobs that do not specialize in direct combat, truck drivers still see combat, they're just not listed as a "combat arms" specialty). And a military suicide is probably examined more closely, and less likely to be listed as an 'accidental death' (most "gun cleaning accidents" are either suicide or reckless conduct, the first step of cleaning a gun is disassembling it, although Glock's do require that you pull the trigger while doing so, but who looks DOWN the barrel of a gun to see if it's loaded?).

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. I'm not disputing any of that. Your point about closer examination is taken, too; I hadn't considered that.

I think the basic point remains, though, that the indications are we're not doing enough for our servicemen. They're putting everything they have on the line, and we should be doing everything we can to help them cope with what it costs them.