Mullen: 18 veterans kill themselves every day in the U.S.

[phantom power]

Navy Admiral Mike Mullen (ret.), former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an audience in Aspen this weekend that military has “18 vets a day who are killing themselves in the United States” due to the incomprehensible stresses of military life, which he said are compounded by a public that is increasingly disconnected from the ongoing wars.

Military suicides rose dramatically after the start of the Iraq war, according to a recent study by the Army’s Public Health Command. That same study found that in 2008, 1 in 5 U.S. soldiers voluntarily submitted to a mental health evaluation, “implying a prevalent public health problem.” Since then, the military’s suicide rate has continued to climb, hitting a 10-year high in 2012, even though U.S. forces are almost entirely withdrawn from Iraq.

As bad as that sounds, it gets worse: Those figures only account for active duty soldiers, and not soldiers who have returned to private life. If Mullen is correct, then the problem of military suicides is even worse than previously known.

“If I’m a 5-year-old boy or girl in the family of one of these deploying units for the army whose average deployment was 12 months at a time, and my dad or mom – but mostly my dad – has deployed at this pace, I’m now 15 or 16 years old, and my dad has been gone three, four or five times,” Mullen explained during an appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival last weekend. “And my whole conscious life, from the time when I was 5 and I started to figure out that there was something out there, my whole conscious life has been at war. The United States has never, never experienced that before. And we see incredible stresses on families.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/02/mullen-18-veterans-kill-themselves-every-day-in-the-u-s/

[Starry Messenger]

1. k&r

[malaise]

2. Veterans are used, abused and left to die

It is way too sad.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Cannon fodder for the ambitions of politicians.

[lovuian]

4. If people knew what War does to the soul

there would be Peace

there is no going around it a piece of your soul wants to die if your a killing machine
Our Vets sacrifice so much
I have one Nephew in the Airforce and the other in the Army
I pray for them everyday

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

and the army is telling soldiers they just need to reframe how they view combat and its effects......don't think in the negative, they say....you didn't go to war...you went to save your country. (shit like that)

Don't think how bad you feel or how helpless you feel....look at the sunshine and how warm it is!

Seriously. It's a let's have happy thoughts therapy.

My husband as PTSD and I live on an army post - I hear and see this shit all the time.

I also hear about (and see) the suicides and suicides attempts.

So much for fucking happy thoughts.

[duhneece]

6. Thanks for sharing what our soldiers are being told

Telling the truth is honoring their service, but we won't know unless someone speaks the truth.

The costs of war are so much more than the dollar costs. Life, blood, family...so much loss for too many.

[indepat]

7. These are but small sacrifices our leaders have concluded our nation must endure as a

national policy of pre-emptive wars of aggression are waged ostensibly to eradicate terrorism from the face of the earth. In doing so, great care is taken to hold down collateral damage although our tactics are often tantamount to terrorism imo. This is the reason the suicide rate among veterans is so high, i.e., our warriors are now required to commit acts known to be morally wrong imo and often in violation of every thing this nation has heretofore stood for.