(MintPress)—Every 80 minutes, a U.S. veteran dies. Not in combat, but because of suicide.
And there are more grim statistics on the topic. From 2005 to 2010, service members took their own lives at a rate of about one every 36 hours, according to a report issued by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
The report, entitled “Losing the Battle, the Challenge of Military Suicide“ also states that while only 1 percent of Americans have served during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, former service members represent 20 percent of suicides in the United States.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates 18 veterans die by suicide each day.
Authors of the CNAS study Dr. Margaret C. Harrell and Nancy Berglass conclude, “America is losing its battle against suicide by veterans and service members. As more troops return from deployment, the risk will only grow.”
As stark as these statistics seem, what’s more alarming is that the VA says those numbers could be an undercount.
Internal acknowledgement
The military has noted the problem since the report was first published in October.
In December Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Bryan B. Battaglia, the Defense Department’s top enlisted leader, said in an interview with the American Forces Press Service, an in-house military news service, “Whether it be [a suicide] every 80 minutes or one every 80 weeks, one is obviously one too many. I’m committed to continuing and exhausting all efforts in order to reduce suicide across the entire total force.”
Battaglia stated that since 2000, the military has implemented several initiatives designed to identify service members at risk for suicide.
“We enabled some … tracking methods, to help us better understand suicide; we built some resiliency programs into our system,” he said. “Total Force Fitness, for example, is a program that provides families an enriched factor of resiliency [and] builds toughness.”
But critics say that the rising rates of veterans ending their own lives highlight the need for the VA to develop more mental-health programs and an accurate system for recording the number of veterans and service members who take their lives.
Need for further assistance
“We have some of the best mental health providers and doctors that the country has to offer. They work around-the-clock in providing care and compassion [and] treatment for service members and families,” Battaglia said.
But an average of 950 suicide attempts have been recorded each month by veterans who are receiving some type of treatment from the VA.
The study also found 31 percent of Army suicides are associated with factors from the years prior to entering the Army, and individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are 1.5 times more likely than healthy individuals to die from suicide.
Other factors that heighten suicide risk include chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms such as depression, anxiety, sleep deprivation, substance abuse and difficulties with anger management.
MintPress previously reported that the VA has has treated more than 210,000 vets of those wars for PTSD in the wake of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it has acknowledged the epidemic is much larger since many of them don’t seek help because of the stigma attached to mental health problems.
Moreover, the Army Times notes that suicide attempts by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is a growing problem and an area for concern.
In 2009 there were a reported 1,621 suicide attempts by men and 247 by women who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, with 94 men and four women dying.
Women attempt suicide more often, the VA has said, but men are more likely to succeed in the attempt. This is due to the fact that women use less lethal and less violent means while men are more likely to use firearms.
While suicides in the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard have been relatively stable and lower than those of the ground forces, U.S. Army suicides have climbed steadily since 2004.
One veteran’s story
The Army reported a record-high number of suicides in July 2011 with the deaths of 33 active and reserve component service members reported as suicides.
“At one point, I was sitting there with a gun in my mouth,” Jason Christiansen, an eight-year Marine Corps veteran told Minnesota Public Radio.
After returning from abroad, Christiansen lost his job. He became depressed, suffered from anxiety and increasing financial difficulties.
Christiansen 35, of St. Paul, Minnesota was able to avoid becoming one of the statistics when he sought help from Case Management, Outreach, Referral and Education program, or CORE program.
The program was started by a partnership between the VA and Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota. It aims to assist veterans and their families with medical care and mental health, substance abuse, financial and free job counseling.
Blair Insley, intake coordinator for the CORE program told MintPress that she has noticed more veterans reaching out to the organization.
“We are preparing for more clientele,” she noted, referencing the veterans who are slated to return from Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming months.
Suggestions for improvement
While the CORE program is only available to veterans in Minnesota, experts say there is a need for the military to step up in all areas of the U.S.
Another problem the CNAS study noted was that when active military personnel are transferred to new units or veterans move to different states across the U.S., those entrusted with helping them with mental health issues are often unaware of particular service members’ personal challenges.
This is because professional organizations license mental health care providers on a state-by-state basis, a geographical move across state lines can preclude continued care from the same provider.
The study recommends that services need to ensure that information about a service member’s mental health well-being is transferred when that individual moves and urges commanders with significant concerns regarding a departing member discuss issues with the receiving commander.
It also calls upon congress to establish a federal pre-emption of state licensing such that mental health care can be provided across state lines for those instances in which military service members or family members have an established pre-existing care relationship.
Another suggestion in ameliorating the problem is that the Army, which has experienced the highest rate of suicides, follow the Marines protocol of keeping a unit together for 90 days following deployment. “The cohesion and camaraderie of a military unit can induce intense feelings of belonging for many service members. Time away from the unit, however, may result in a reduced or thwarted sense of belonging, as individuals no longer have the daily support of their units and feel separate and different from civilians,” it said.
One bright spot the study points to is the VA’s Veterans Crisis Line, which in its first three years received more than 144,000 calls involving veterans and saved more than 7,000 actively suicidal veterans.
“The U.S. military cannot avoid the stark reality of suicide entirely. Service members and veterans reflect the broader American public, which not only suffers from suicide, but also stigmatizes mental health care. Further, some service members enter military service with mental health challenges and we should not conclude that serving in the military caused these suicides,” Harrell and Berglass write.