Military suicide

strategyPage has a long essay on PTSS, suicide, and the military, and how the military is trying to control the epidemic.

LINK

Military epidemiologists (experts on medical statistics) have long sought to convince people outside the military that the rise in suicide rates within the military has little to do with the stress of combat and mostly to do with the stresses of military life during wartime or peacetime. In other words, the increased suicides were not concentrated among the combat veterans, who make up less than 15 percent of those in the military but are more evenly distributed among all service personnel.

For example, during the last decade over 75 percent of suicides were among troops who had never gone overseas. The military, especially the army, has long documented all deaths and the Department of Defense in 2013 released a study of all suicides since 2001, when more troops saw combat, to 2008, when the heavy fighting in Iraq ended.

A similar study for 2009-2012 suicides found little change. The researchers also point out that the reasons for suicides in the military are quite similar to those for civilian suicides, especially when victims are of the same age, education, and other factors as their military counterparts. In other words, periods of intense combat for the military have little impact on the overall suicide rate because so few troops are exposed to combat.

These revelations were not well received by the mass media which makes much of the rising suicide rate in the military but pays less attention to rising suicide rates among civilians of the same age and education. That was 9 per 100,000 in 2001 but had risen to 17.5 in 2013 and by 2016 was 26 per 100,000 men aged 25-44, which is the age of most men in the military.

This was declared to be a health emergency, and to a certain degree, it was. What was missed in all the discussion was that the higher suicide rate in the military is usually below the rate for civilians of military age.