The video above gives one pause; two minutes of your life should be spent watching it.
This issue gives me all kinds of thoughts and feelings. My best summary is that our soldiers shouldn’t have been put in that position in the first place, but we need to care for them with the best healthcare system and the best opportunity for whatever education they want to pursue.
Reuters writes HERE:
The VA has sought to improve data collection, too, and the numbers appear troubling: In 2011 there were 17,754 suicide attempts — about 48 a day — up from 10,888 in 2009.
That increase, the VA said, may largely reflect an improved tracking system put into place in 2010 and a growing number of patients treated at VA facilities. The VA couldn’t provide data on the number of suicides within the VA system after 2009, but the figures through that date show a broadly stable rate since 2003 that is higher than the national average.
Outside the VA healthcare system, which has almost 9 million enrollees, the data becomes murky. The VA has estimated that roughly 18 veterans nationwide kill themselves every day, but that number is based on limited data.
We’ve written about this before in “FOR EVERY SOLDIER KILLED ON THE BATTLEFIELD ABOUT 25 VETERANS ARE DYING BY THEIR OWN HANDS.”
