A Buzz Kill

"In the month of January, we lost more soldiers to suicide than to al-Qaida," said Paul Rieckhoff, director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Reported suicide attempts in the military jumped 500 percent from about 350 in 2002 to 2,100 last year, that means every day at least 5 US soldiers try to kill themselves. That’s not it, in the month of February the number of military suicides surpassed the number of combat deaths reported last month by all branches of the armed forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the fight against terrorism. Seems that there are other issues this country is dealing with other than war.   Statistics say that about a third of suicides occur during deployments abroad, a third after deployments and a third among soldiers who never even deploy. So the reason all these soldiers are killing themselves is not just at the front line but clearly back home as wll. If the death toll of these soldiers from suicides has already reached to these numbers then why isn’t this a main priority for our government and what are their options for helping to prevent all of these tragic events?

                After conducting further research into military suicide trends it is clear the reasons are almost endless. One of the most common motives seems to be based on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the last time that this was a major problem for us has not been since the Vietnam era.   According to the National Institute of Mental Health, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can by developed due to a extremely frightening or distressing event.The truth is though that the event that can cause PTSD is completely relevant to the person, for instance just because one soldier developed PTSD because of a checkpoint bombing he experienced does not mean all the other soldiers that were there will as well. PTSD has not been the main cause behind suicides in military only, but in all suicides today. Researchers are still... [continues]

Read full essay