'Any member of the armed forces who dies in the thrall of a personal crisis is a casualty of that war — every bit as much as if they had fallen on the battlefield,' writes USA TODAY's Editorial Board. (via usatodayopinion)
The Editorial BoardAs Americans honor veterans this holiday, it’s vital to remember the silent war being waged in homes and barracks and countless other places where soldiers, past and present, are dying by the thousands every year. They’re killing themselves in a war of self-destruction that the United States is losing.
The resulting strain was unprecedented. Amid a daily drumbeat of news from far-flung wars, desperately personal conflicts were being fought and lost at home.Army Sgt. Douglas Hale Jr., 26, twice a veteran of combat, bought a pawnshop pistol and killed himself in a restaurant bathroom outside Fort Hood, Texas. After five deployments, Army Maj. Troy Donn Wayman, 44, died in his Texas home.
But that changed after about 2003. Military suicide rates suddenly and sharply increased. And they’ve never come down. Last year, 325 active-duty troops died by suicide, a rate of 24.8 per 100,000. The civilian suicide rate is 18 per 100,000.The trend bled through to the veteran population, where thousands take their own lives each year. The highest rate — 44.5 per 100,000 — is among veterans ages 18-34.
“We’ve accepted this new high rate as normal,” says Carl Castro, a psychologist and retired Army colonel, now an associate professor at the University of Southern California. “They don’t even remember a time when it was lower.”The crisis cries out for a fresh approach. Programs should be more aggressively evaluated to see whether they really work. Recruiters must do a more precise job of screening applicants for suicide risk and emotional issues.
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