Suicides by soldiers tragic

Sun Media via Toronto Sun ^ | 2009-07-14 | Peter Worthington

[Clive]

Last week the Toronto Star ran a disturbing front page headlined story about suicides in the Canadian military, and cited evidence that the stress of overseas missions may result in criminal acts by returned veterans.

The renewed concern about suicide and stress disorder among the military has intensified since Maj. Michelle Mendes, a fast-tracked and respected intelligence officer, committed suicide shortly after arriving in Afghanistan in April.

Now research is underway among veterans, dating back to the Korean war and peacekeeping, to see if there's a pattern of what they went through that may have affected their later lives.

Soldiers who commit suicide has always been a puzzling phenomenon that is rarely diagnosed except by hindsight. Maybe it57;s incomprehensible, except that it happens and is always tragic and seemingly unnecessary.

DND prides itself in noting that the suicide rate in the military is lower than the national average, but this is misleading because military personnel are screened before they are accepted, and are not the average.

A harsh reality is that since 1995 when the UN's peacekeeping role in the Balkans was turned over to NATO to become more aggressive, through 2008 and the "war" in Afghanistan, more Canadian service personnel have committed suicide than have been killed by enemy action - 145 suicides to 124 killed in action (at this writing) in Afghanistan.

Small wonder that DND is uneasy.

RATE DROPPING

Still, in five-year increments since 1995, the suicide rate in the Canadian Forces has dropped from 19.8% (1995-99) to 19.1% (2000 -04) and 17.9% (2005-08) at a time when casualties were highest in Afghanistan. Canadians wounded by enemy action are likely 10 times higher than the death rate, some more severely wounded than even during the Second World War).

Over the past 15 years, between seven and 13 military males a year have committed suicide 52; ironic, sad and puzzling, but far below the national average.

Suicide is a peculiarly Canadian choice of death - roughly comparable to the number of Canadians who die annually in traffic accidents. In 2003, for example, Statistics Canada noted that there were 3,765 suicides compared to 2,766 traffic fatalities that year - 1,000 more suicides.

Even these statistics are misleading, because there's no way of knowing how many traffic deaths were really suicides. (Of known suicides, 92% are by firearms).

As far as the Canadian military is concerned, the suicide rate tends to diminish when soldiers are actually in a combat area, or are in action. From 1995 to 2002, before Canadian troops were committed to Afghanistan, the suicide rate averaged slightly less than the period between 2002-08 when our troops were increasingly engaged in fighting the Taliban.

Another oddity is that when our military is committed to action and "fighting" is stressed, recruiting tends to be higher than when the military is stressing job security and benefits to lure young men and women to enlist.

PACIFISTS

This latter reality won't please the pacifists and anti-militarists among us, but it speaks volumes about the values and personalities of Canadians.

As far as suicide is concerned, of the 3,700 Canadians who kill themselves every year, only 12 are in the Canadian Forces - not an alarming number.

While it's valid for DND and the military to keep researching and probing causes for suicide and stress, and implementing better treatment for those physically and psychologically damaged by what they endure, there seems no reason to push the panic button.

By their training, soldiers, police, firefighters, nurses and doctors are conditioned to cope with situations the rest of us shudder to think about.

[Clive]

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[fanfan]

[Defiant]

As far as suicide is concerned, of the 3,700 Canadians who kill themselves every year, only 12 are in the Canadian Forces - not an alarming number.

Nice how they add this at the end. What's the point of the story, then????

I have read that the suicide rate and murder rate for US armed forces is well below the national average, yet all we hear about is disturbed vets.