Millitary Suicide Rate at Alarming Rates

[tamias6]

A new Army report reveals that soldiers committed suicides at elevated rates during 2003, with those deployed to Iraq and Kuwait experiencing the greatest increase.

About.com article

How many more straws need to be stacked on the camel's back before our dummy politicians get it in their thick skulls that this War based on a lie is going nowhere?

[Lowerdeck]

They're still making money, that's all that matters. Jan. 21st, 2009 ... that's when the fun begins.

[Raintree21]

While every life lost is a tragedy, this really isn't a lot of people. It is about 1/10,000th of the the total deployed military personnel.

The article says:

The rate was 17.3 per 100,000 for soldiers in Iraq/Kuwait. The overall Army suicide rate during the same time period was 12.8 per 100,000 soldiers. This compares to the Army's rate of 12.2 for 2003 and 11.9 from 1995 to 2002.

The suicide rate for deployed troops dropped dramatically in 2004. Swanner said no suicides were reported in January or February, and just one soldier took his own life in March. The cause of another fatality has not yet been determined.

Despite the spike, officials said these figures remain lower than the national average of 21.5 per 100,000 for males ages 20 to 34. This is the age bracket for most U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

[ironchapman]

While it is certainly worth a read, do realize that this article was printed in 2004. I'd be interested to see what the rates are for the past few years, though.

Anyways, I find myself in agreement with Raintree.

[JerseyBoy]

While it is certainly worth a read, do realize that this article was printed in 2004. I'd be interested to see what the rates are for the past few years, though.

Anyways, I find myself in agreement with Raintree.

[Raintree21]

A slightly different story is at Charlotte.com.

I again say that I every death is a tragecy BUT it's still lower than what was reported during Gulf War 1. It's still lower than the national average. Only about 25% of the personnel did so while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. And it's still pretty close to the 1/10,000th I mentioned earlier.

[monsoon]

While people may dismiss these numbers as insignificant, they are yet another death toll that can be added to this terrible and wasteful war. A war that didn't have to happen. Frankly I am surprised as some of the dismissals, especially the one that said "they volunteered for the military" as some reason that we should accept 100 people killing themselves as a result of fighting this war. I simply don't know how we have come to have so many cold heartless people in this country now.

I've deleted that post and posts that have nothing to do with this subject including those saying this is story is all liberal lies. One more time, stick to the topic at hand.

[tamias6]

Thank You Metro. A life is worth far too much to dismiss its loss in an "oh well" manner.