More Than You Will Ever Know
There are more ways for a war to kill soldiers than death in a firefight, ambush, shelling, or bombing. In many cases it can rob them of themselves, leaving little trace of the person that existed beforehand. Sometimes it can rob them of relationships, of limbs and other body parts, and yes, even their sanity.
Sometimes the fatalities of a war go unnoticed entirely, domestic statistics that are never pondered by the public at large. I am, of course, referring to suicide.
According to a recent investigative report by CBS, the suicide rate of US veterans was an astronomical 120 a week in 2005, some 6256 veterans that year alone – more than the total US death toll of the Iraq war. The report uses statistics that date as far back as 1995.
In Addition
Updated at 10:04 PM PST.
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November 15th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Unreal 6256????????? It can only be depression, or is there another reason someone would take their life?
Side note: My cousin whose studying medicine at UBC is studying antidepressants and depression at the moment. He told me that percentages of suicide in the first week of taking antidepressants are extremely high.. I think he said it has to do with not accepting that you had to go on them in the first place and it is so much easier to just end your life…. Just something I thought might be of interest to some.. I definately plan on doing some googling on this…. I found the percentage quite high, something like 80%?
November 15th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
I wonder how the same numbers would compare here in Canada. I can only hope that the situation we’ve put our soldiers into isn’t as conducive to mental illness as the Iraq War.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Why would think that? War is war.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
This was in the paper this morning…quite the shocking statistic. Is there any assessment of these veteran’s wellbeing once they return home from combat?
November 15th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
I would think no matter who you are, Canadian, American, you are still seeing the same stuff over there….
November 15th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
As far as Canada goes, after the tour, the soldiers are often sent for decompression ie in Cypris or the Canary Islands for about a week. They undergo initial psychological assessment, are engaged in reintergration classes, and take a few other classes of his or her choice. I believe its 6 weeks afterwards, and then later on, 6 months afterwards that the other assessments take place. Maybe Patrick will have some insight..
I haven’t watched the video, as my husband is asleep beside me, but all I can say is, there are a lot of guys/girls who are effected mentally that do not get the attention needed. I think it needs to be pushed more as many people are aware of those who suffer from PTSD, but do not get involved or report it to others. On the other hand, not everyone who is subjected to war is effected to such an extreme, and various symptoms of PTSD, clastophobia, nightmares, aggression issues, can often be exaggerated by counsellors, peers, and superiors discouraging soldiers from getting help feeling that they are not “man enough” or going to seriously effect their careers if they seek help.
As for the US, I have no idea as of the present.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Matt - you stole my thunder…
I’ll tell you what has got me enraged… all the television pundits who keep attacking the VA… in fact, none of this is actually the VA’s fault…
Its the assholes who refuse to FUND the VA… the Bush administration hacks who put a cap on VA spending… Let me ask this question… is there going to be a cap on the dead and injured soldiers as well? Because if so, then by all means, go right ahead and cap spending…
The VA is staffed by incredibly competant and hard-working people who have had their hands tied by a stifling bureaucracy that comes from within the private sector… contractors whose main goal is to make a profit for their shareholders, not help the maimed and mentally ill veterans back from duty. That is why suicide numbers are supressed… and one can only imagine what else is allowed to fall between the cracks for the “benefit” of the free market…
These people are vermin… parasites… bastards… every last one of them…
November 15th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Tanya:
Many other mental disorders would contribute…such as PTSD(Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), Bipolarity, Schizophrenia…some of which may have already existed prior to being deployed, and some being the result of the traumatizing events that have been witnessed by many of these soldiers. I also think that it may also have to do with their personal relationships…did they try to save a friend in their company? did they come home and their wife/ husband took it all? perhaps some came home and became addicted to illegal substances…I think its really a myriad of causes that intertwine with the fact that they have served in violent encounters and witnessed such troubling events.
As for antidepressants (from what I know)…it could be the mere idea of having to undergo a medicinal regimen that may cause some of the suicides you speak of in the first week of taking SSRIs etc..I think it may also have to do with the fact that when you take that first pill on the first day you have this euphoric high where everything is going to be okay, and when you realize that it takes about a month for the meds to actually enter your bloodstream (at least is the case with Paxil), and snap out of it and find that your symptoms are really no better…well, pretty disappointing feeling…also I think it’s good you brought up meds because there is a very real possibility that some of the soldiers’ suicides could have been cause by the wrong medication, reactions to the medications they are taking, as well as conflicts with other medicines they may be taking such as pain killers, sleep aides etc etc…
of course in my own personal experience with antidepressants I could see a very real possibility of just getting fed up with the actual treatment itself…awake all night…twitching, muscle spasms, migraines, lack of appetite…
you’re gonna laugh when you hear my source on this…but I saw on Montel Williams a year or so ago about adolescents who had committed suicide on psychotropic drugs….chiefly Paxil and Prozac…it seems to me that sometimes meds seem like that ultimate cure, but its tricky business dealing with all your neurotransmitters and the reconfiguring of how your receptors receive them…and although they like to think they have a pretty good handle on what to dose who with…not every one is the same as the cookie cutter guinea pig (figuratively speaking) who was used to establish dosages…and depression is often the first of many misdiagnoses with mental disorder since the signs of other disorders are so prevalent with depression as well.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
There was a program on TV awhile ago about how the soldiers were being let down and their mental health ignored once they’d returned home. In order to get help, they had to be properly diagnosed and that didn’t always happen. Many had serious problems reintegrating back into “normal” civilian life and the show brought to light the issues that they faced on a daily basis - things like depression, post traumatic stress disorder and other serious problems. Families were struggling to overcome these things without adequate assistance and it tore many of them apart. Some were really messed up and just couldn’t adjust to civilian life - they were unable to sleep, suffering from hallucinations and anxiety, etc.
It was extremely sad.
Anyhow, a piece in The Psychiatric Times (January, 2006) on PTSD and the Armed Forces cited 1,275 evacuations from Iraq due to psychiatric illness in active soldiers. Wow. And that was just the “known” cases…there were many unreported ones that would boost that number well beyond that.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
As many as four times the number of Vietnam vets commited suicide in the years after that war than soldiers killed during it.
My own experience with PTSD makes me understand how hard many soldiers are going to find the years after the they come home from the war. They’ll be locked into powerful emotions that have no connection with the here and now which can make normal functioning almost impossible.
Anti-depressants can be a two edged sword. They can make people feel better, but they can also give some people the energy to act on suicidal thoughts they might not have had the energy to act on when depressed. It’s very important to closely monitor seriously depressed people when they first start taking anti-depressants.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:13 am
Ashleigh-Dawn good post.
I was offered Antidepressants in my early 20’s when I had a tendancy to go to the doctor’s for every little problem I had…. I always said no…. But not everyone ‘can’ say no.. I was able to realize that perhaps my problems were my own doing and I somehow managed to fix them by talking to counsellor’s.. I never wanted to alter the way I felt but as I said, I had that choice, I think…. I wasn’t as deeply depressed and it was always temporary. That and I was a complete drama queen who thought things were worse than they were…
That is a great posting, Thanks!!!!!
November 16th, 2007 at 12:21 am
War has always been horribly traumatic for anyone involved. That this is news to anyone enrages me.
I think it’s also significant to point out that one in four American homeless people are veterans. I doubt our stats would go that way, based on having actual health care, but when I hear that I am disgusted by the American bastards who rally about “supporting the troops.” Do they ever bother to think about those troops when they aren’t currently serving? My guess is no. Actually, they don’t even seem to care if they have body armour. Or if they have any health car whatsoever. It’s political ping-pong… and it makes me nauseated.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Because of the use of IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan TBIs (Traumatic Brain Injuries) may be much more common than was first thought. Many soldiers who appeared to survive attacks unhurt may infact suffer from serious brain injury that won’t show up for months.
“Scientists trying to understand traumatic brain injury from bomb blasts are finding the wound more insidious than they once thought.
They find that even when there are no outward signs of injury from the blast, cells deep within the brain can be altered, their metabolism changed, causing them to die, says Geoff Ling, an advance-research scientist with the Pentagon.
The new findings are the result of blast experiments in recent years on animals, followed by microscopic examination of brain tissue. The findings could mean that the number of brain-injured soldiers and Marines — many of whom appear unhurt after exposure to a blast — may be far greater than reported, says Ibolja Cernak, a scientist with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. ”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-09-23-traumatic-brain-injuries_N.htm?csp=34
November 16th, 2007 at 12:27 am
http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Find_Support/Veterans_Resources/Veterans_Resource_Center.htm
http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Public_Policy&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=87&ContentID=53337
Just some information sites I found. Not solutions by any means, just a resource page. Not sure what the Canadian Mental Health Association has to offer. As mentioned, Patrick would probably have some of that information.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:40 am
[quote comment="33259"]Ashleigh-Dawn good post.
I was offered Antidepressants in my early 20’s when I had a tendency to go to the doctor’s for every little problem I had…. I always said no…. But not everyone ‘can’ say no.. I was able to realize that perhaps my problems were my own doing and I somehow managed to fix them by talking to counselors.. I never wanted to alter the way I felt but as I said, I had that choice, I think…. I wasn’t as deeply depressed and it was always temporary. That and I was a complete drama queen who thought things were worse than they were…
That is a great posting, Thanks!!!!![/quote]
haha thanks…
I was put on antidepressants and in my 6 months my dosage was upped twice. However, my symptoms were more physical as opposed to mental. I thought something was terribly wrong with me, and I had extensive blood work done, and even had parasite tests done just to rule out any other physical reason for why I was so sick. When everything came back negative, and I was still having issues they had no other explanation for me….but i was also diagnosed and went untreated since I was 14 (I am a survivor of child and sexual abuse from an alcoholic home). Now that I am unmedicated I have been looking at the possibility of going into therapy, but i guess I’m ultimately afraid that it’s not depression, and something more serious. Which could have huge implications on my life seeing as I am aspiring to become the be all end all of high school counselors. My depression is strange…and I would be lying if I said that I have never been suicidal…but not to worry, I’m such a wimp… it ain’t happening…
Deb: I think I saw that show you mentioned…I also saw one on a Military hospital that housed a lot of the soldiers who were shipped back home due to physical injuries, and they even rigged their reports on how many soldiers were being treated for those. Will they ever own up to the carnage they have brought to their own people’s lives? Well, shit they don’t even like to say how many Iraqis they have killed or wounded.
November 16th, 2007 at 3:28 am
Part Two is here
After the whole Walter Reid fiasco, hopefully this wakes more people up to the fact that the US government is not taking proper care of its soldiers. Then again, I wonder what must happen, what information must come to light, before the American people become angry enough to hold their elected officials accountable for the mounting pile of wrongs committed by the government over the past 6 years and beyond.
That said, I hope this news causes the DND to look into the mental health status of our own returning soldiers and take steps to properly care for them.
November 16th, 2007 at 5:14 am
Romeo Dallaire
November 16th, 2007 at 5:38 am
Yeah, I agree with the “war is war” statement. Its not just the Iraq war, or being on antidepressants… I think it’s hard to be in war. And kill people. And pretend to yourself that you’re OK with it because its just your job.
Some think that war and violence and etc are human nature. I think that things like this go against that view… if it were human nature, why would it be so difficult for our subconscious mind to deal with it? No matter how you sugar coat it or disassociate yourself from the reality of the consequences… we don’t like to hurt others.
Sometimes it manifests itself in other ways. Not all veterans commit suicide, but I’m sure there are other effects too.
I’m editing this right away just to add… it’s like the studies that were done early in the 20th century. The Milgram studies were one of them, and there was another scientist as well (sorry the name escapes me, its only 7:30 in the morning) …anyway, it was found that in WWI and WWII and the wars before that, soldiers were only hitting a small percentage of their targets. I’ll try to find the actual documents so I can follow up on this but basically soldiers were missing on purpose. And there are several factors that make soldiers more likely to actually kill their target (proximity to an authority figure, being in a group, cultural distance from the enemy, etc) but the biggest one is training. After these studies, training efforts went through the roof and now the shoot-kill ratio is way higher.
Anyway, point being that when put in the situation, killing was not a favourable option (and it was happening on both sides of battles).
I just don’t think it sits well with us on a deeper level, a “natural” level even.
November 16th, 2007 at 8:09 am
http://www.forces.gc.ca/hr/thecentre/engraph/home_e.asp
“Centre for the Support of Injured and Retired Members and their Families”
The US could use something like this.
[quote]THE CENTRE is a new and unique initiative in inter-departmental cooperation, designed to bring the joint efforts of both the Department of National Defence (DND) and Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) together in providing information and services to injured and retired military members and their families.[/quote]
November 16th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Those statistics are awful. For every person that kills him or herself, it causes a ripple effect that changes the lives of every person that he or she knew. The grieving process that takes place after a suicide is also significantly different from the process for an accidental or natural death.
If these statistics are being gathered, there needs to be an action plan put into place to prevent this from happening. It won’t only be the lives of the vetrans that are saved; but, their children’s, parent’s, spouse’s, and friends’ lives as well. Suicide is one of the worst things that can happen to a family.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:11 am
The same goes for anyone ins a stressful situation. Namely Canadian Federal Prison Guards. The rate of long serving (10 years) suffereing from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is upwards of 45%. One the side affects fo PTSD is, of course, suicide.
A serious look at “debriefing” these people we have “trained to survive” needs to happen.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I lost my Ex to Suicide…
it’s a very hard Thing to deal with…
…and I know for a Fact that he couldn’t deal
with the Things he had seen and experienced…
There are Things that will change us…
they are carved so deep into our Souls
that they become a Part of Us…
There’s no Amount of Pills
that can erase the Pain….
November 16th, 2007 at 10:25 am
When I was diagnosed with PTSD I went nuts on google, and learned that it as well as other mental illnesses have been reported as diagnosed in returning soldiers as far back as WWI. I am sure if I had done more digging it would have gone back even farther….
I am not a soldier. But I can easily see why those suffuering from this disorder might see suicide as their only way out.
Point is, this ’shell shock’ is definently a huge contributing factor to the suicide rate, and needs to be better treated. It angers me that I can easily go to a psyciatrist and be treated for this disorder, while people who have seen far more horrid things than I are suffering silently.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:28 am
[quote comment="33281"]Romeo Dallaire[/quote]
Shake Hands With The Devil is a deeply moving documentary. Everyone should watch it.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:45 am
[quote comment="33299"]I lost my Ex to Suicide…
it’s a very hard Thing to deal with…
…and I know for a Fact that he couldn’t deal
with the Things he had seen and experienced…
There are Things that will change us…
they are carved so deep into our Souls
that they become a Part of Us…
There’s no Amount of Pills
that can erase the Pain….[/quote]
My heart goes out to you!!
November 16th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Bah, this is nonsense. Pitt’s Ex Military and he’s perfectly… nevermind.
Seriously though, I’ve always assumed that this was one of the worst parts of war, being plagued by mental illness and or horrifying dreams and images you can’t shake, trying to adapt to being crippled, the possible loss of best friends or a spouse… sometimes the circumstances are worse than death, at least with death there’s peace. Which is almost definitely why there’s such a saddeningly high suicide rate.
Definitely not surprised at the statistics though… which is very sad indeed.
And sorry Pitt lol, someone had to say it.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I would be interested in hearing the number of spouses who commit suicide after their husband/wife is killed in combat.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Same, although I seem to always hear that someone killed had children back home…. If someone took their life that had children to take care of, they’d have to be in a pretty dark place already?
November 16th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
It’s very true that the war affects people in ways we can’t always see. My cousin was back from Iraq for over 4 months before he realized he had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He had trouble holding onto the job he’d gotten, he couldn’t sleep well, he was always anxious, and he didn’t even know what was wrong…It’s really terrible what it does to people.
November 16th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
“it was found that in WWI and WWII and the wars before that, soldiers were only hitting a small percentage of their targets.”
Here’s further info: David Grossman, a retired Army psychologist, has written extensively about the process that takes immature, untrained teens and turns them into killers. His research, called “killology,” is documented in his Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Grossman’s book describes how the military confronted a unique problem: Not enough of its soldiers were actually shooting their weapons in battle. Studies after the Civil War and World Wars I and II found that a relatively small number of soldiers — as few as 15 percent — actually fired at the enemy. “Obviously, you can’t have that situation in war,” he says.
November 16th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
The statistics are overwhelming; I was completely unaware.
November 16th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
I am not surprised at all.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers weren’t higher. (Car ‘accidents’ and similiar tragedies).
I knew things were going to turn this way pretty much after the war was ‘on’ and it’s heartbreaking.
9/11 ruined lives but that pales in comparison to the casualties across the U.S. that will accumulate as this war continues on.
November 17th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Pentagon Cover Up:
15,000 or more US casualties in Iraq War
By Mike Whitney
11/17/07 “ICH” — – The Pentagon has been concealing the true number of American casualties in the Iraq War. The real number exceeds 15,000 and CBS News can prove it.
CBS’s Investigative Unit wanted to do a report on the number of suicides in the military and “submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Defense”. After 4 months they received a document which showed–that between 1995 and 2007–there were 2,200 suicides among “active duty” soldiers.
Baloney.
The Pentagon was covering up the real magnitude of the “suicide epidemic”. Following an exhaustive investigation of veterans’ suicide data collected from 45 states; CBS discovered that in 2005 alone “THERE WERE AT LEAST 6,256 AMONG THOSE WHO SERVED IN THE ARMED FORCES. THAT’S 120 EACH AND EVERY WEEK IN JUST ONE YEAR.”
That is not a typo. Active and retired military personnel, mostly young veterans between the ages of 20 to 24, are returning from combat and killing themselves in record numbers. We can assume that “multiple-tours of duty” in a war-zone have precipitated a mental health crisis of which the public is entirely unaware and which the Pentagon is in total denial.
If we add the 6,256 suicide victims from 2005 to the “official” 3,865 reported combat casualties; we get a sum of 10,121. Even a low-ball estimate of similar 2004 and 2006 suicide figures, would mean that the total number of US casualties from the Iraq war now exceed 15,000.
That’s right; 15,000 dead US servicemen and women in a war that–as yet–has no legal or moral justification.
CBS interviewed Dr. Ira Katz, the head of mental health at the Department of Veteran Affairs. Katz attempted to minimize the surge in veteran suicides saying, “There is no epidemic of suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem.”
Maybe Katz right. Maybe there is no epidemic. Maybe it’s perfectly normal for young men and women to return from combat, sink into inconsolable depression, and kill themselves at greater rates than they were dying on the battlefield. Maybe it’s normal for the Pentagon to abandon them as soon as soon they return from their mission so they can blow their brains out or hang themselves with a garden hose in their basement. Maybe it’s normal for politicians to keep funding wholesale slaughter while they brush aside the casualties they have produced by their callousness and lack of courage. Maybe it is normal for the president to persist with the same, bland lies that perpetuate the occupation and continue to kill scores of young soldiers who put themselves in harm’s-way for their country.
It’s not normal; it’s is a pandemic—an outbreak of despair which is the natural corollary of living in constant fear; of seeing one’s friends being dismembered by roadside bombs or children being blasted to bits at military checkpoints or finding battered bodies dumped on the side of a riverbed like a bag of garbage.
The rash of suicides is the logical upshot of Bush’s war. Returning soldiers are traumatized by their experience and now they are killing themselves in droves. Maybe we should have thought about that before we invaded.
Check it out the video at: CBS News “Suicide Epidemic among Veterans” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/cbsnews_investigates/main3496471.shtml