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Thursday, February 5, 2009

News Army Suicides on the Rise; "Terrifying"

Posted by Wm.™ Steven Humphrey on Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 1:36 PM

A very creepy report from CNN:

One week after the U.S. Army announced record suicide rates among its soldiers last year, the service is worried about a spike in possible suicides in the new year.
If reports of suicides are confirmed, more soldiers will have taken their lives in January than died in combat.

The Army said 24 soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in January alone — six times as many as killed themselves in January 2008, according to statistics released Thursday.

The Army said it already has confirmed seven suicides, with 17 additional cases pending that it believes investigators will confirm as suicides for January.

If those prove true, more soldiers will have killed themselves than died in combat last month. According to Pentagon statistics, there were 16 U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq in January.

"This is terrifying," an Army official said. "We do not know what is going on."

I bet you have some theories.

 

Comments (6) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment
1
Seven out of how many people in the Army?
And think of this - Combat deaths at an all time low.
Also - compare the rates with that of the public.
Posted by D on February 5, 2009 at 1:51 PM · Report
2
wiki says army has pop of about 1,082,000.
Posted by NIG GER on February 5, 2009 at 1:53 PM · Report
3
US suicide rate: 11.01 per 100,000 people (or about .01%) (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/dvp/Suicide/suici…)


According to the CNN article, the Army rate is 20.2 per 100k, over double the general population. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/05/army.suic…)
Posted by nerdliness on February 5, 2009 at 4:12 PM · Report
4
Note: that US number is from their 2008 report, and the number is from 2005. Looks like the CDC has a bit of a reporting lag for those numbers, but the couple reports I saw were in that same ballpark. Betting that number doesn't fluctuate that much.
Posted by nerdliness on February 5, 2009 at 4:15 PM · Report
5
As with most such statistics, there are a lot of possible explanations which are, in fact, inane. Such as a change in reporting standards or habits.

At any rate, what might cause someone whose job it is to walk around with a bullseye on his back on the one hand while being prepared to kill men, women, and children on the other, to feel a bit weird about life?

It's a mystery...
Posted by Amanda Bandana on February 5, 2009 at 4:57 PM · Report
6
i imagine romantic relationship troubles arising from distance+raging unemployment don't make for a great return to the u.s.a. for kids who were already in a situation such that their best option at age 18 or 22 was the joining the military under george fucking goddamn bush.
Posted by old lady on February 8, 2009 at 3:57 AM · Report

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