31 law enforcement officers have taken their own lives since 1-1-19

Local deputy's death sparks conversation about police suicides

KWTX 10 News
By Rissa Shaw
Feb 12, 2019

So far in 2019, at least 31 law enforcement officers have taken their own lives, including a young McLennan County jail deputy who graduated from the police academy less than a year ago.

WACO, Texas (KWTX) The recent death of a McLennan County deputy is creating awareness about police suicide.

"We deal with quite a few suicides in the county, but it's very different when one of your own people takes their own life," said Sheriff Parnell McNamara. "It's always a very sad thing when you lose one of your own."

For the third year in a row, police suicides have outnumbered line of duty deaths, according Blue H.E.L.P., a non-profit run by active and retired officers advocating for greater mental health resources for law enforcement.

"The heart of an officer is to do what is right by everyone and to do the best job that we can, and sometimes, we need help," said Lydia Alvarado, Chief of Police for the City of Bellmead.

Alvarado, who's been teaching mental health peace officer certification courses since 2003 and critical incident training (CIT) since 2005, is considered a local expert in mental health as it relates to law enforcement.
read more here

"22" is not honorable for Memorial Day or any other day!

Dishonoring their lives on Memorial Day

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 19, 2020

If you hate it when I rant...you won't like this one! My anger is directed toward all the people out there participating in spreading the lie that 22 veterans a day commit suicide. If you are one of them, doing your pushups, thinking that you are helping, you are not. You may feel good about doing it, but the only people you are helping are the ones collecting the money you raise for them!

I have been fighting that ear worm since the report came out and it is time for more people to do whatever it takes to stop this bullshit! The known cases have gone up since suicide awareness started. It has only made them aware of other veterans giving up when they need to be made aware that their lives can be a hell of a lot better than they are aware of!

York police raise suicide awareness with 22 push-ups per day

YORK, Maine — The York Police Department has entered a challenge to complete 22 push-ups for 22 days to bring awareness to veteran and law enforcement suicides. An estimated 22 veterans die by suicide each day, according to a 2012 report by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. That has given rise to a national movement to bring awareness to veteran suicide and those suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

York residents are encouraged to film themselves and participate in the push-up challenge using the hashtag #22yorkmaine on social media, according to the department’s Facebook page

I am a fan of the police officers but not this stunt!

Fact on veterans committing suicide
Report came from limited data from just 21 states.

From page 15

Are we preventing suicides or preventing the truth? Shouldn't facts matter? Should the fact that suicide is contagious matter? Telling a veteran, or anyone else, that there are a lot more taking their own lives, does nothing to help them want to stay alive. You are robbing them of hope and a reason to seek help to heal.

Good motives do not replace good results. If the did then you would not be seeing an increase in suicides among law enforcement, but none of you are doing pushups for your own house!
Police Officer Suicide Facts

At least 228 police officers died by suicide in 2019, Blue H.E.L.P. says. That's more than were killed in the line of duty. USA Today

BLUEHELP.org

I have a list of names on this site because they were not just numbers. Officers doing pushups for a fictitious number of veterans committing suicide does not make sense when their own numbers have been going up. How many more officers have to take their own lives in the parking lots of Police stations before you guys wake up? 

What will it take for you to grasp the fact that if you #BreakTheSilence about your own pain, you will help them? What if instead of hearing how many others have committed suicide, you turned it around and told them #TakeBackYourLife so that they would want to fight to heal instead of not trusting you to listen to them? They trust you with their lives on the job but they cannot trust you with their pain? WTF? 

Any idea of the fact that the people who started all this push up bullshit just decided one day to "do something" about it without finding out what needed to be done? MY GOD! I did the first report on veterans committing suicide back in 2007!

I admire police officers because there are many times you have saved my life! I survived traumatic events that could have killed me 10 times and most of the time, you guys saved me. It breaks my heart to see so many of you take your own lives because of the jobs you have but when there is still this massive failure going on when it comes to saving the people you risk your lives with, there is no excuse. It is even more infuriating to see all of you participating in this stunt that has been a failure and spreads pain.

If you really want to make a difference, learn some facts and then support the groups doing what they can to actually PREVENT SUICIDES!

Two Lewis-McChord soldiers committed suicide in front of others

Police investigating two apparent soldiers suicides in recent weeks
By Austin Jenkins

Police in Lakewood, Wash., are investigating the apparent suicides of two soldiers from the nearby Joint Base Lewis-McChord in recent weeks. In both cases, police say the soldiers shot themselves in the presence of someone else.

The first soldier to die was Spc. Rory Johnson, age 29. He was part of the hard hit 5th Stryker Brigade that deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010.

Eleven days after Johnson's death, Spc. Jonathon Gilbert shot himself. He was just 21 and had deployed to Iraq in 2009.

Lakewood police are releasing few details, but they will say the suicides took place at social gatherings and other soldiers were present.
read more here
Police investigating two apparent soldiers suicides

As sad as these stories are, keep in mind that the witnesses of these suicides had to deal with shock on top of the loss. They will need more help because of this. After trauma there is a 30 window. If the symptoms do not fade over a month, then they need to seek help. If they talk to someone right after the event, PTSD does not usually take hold. Friends and family members need to be watchful for signs of change in the soldiers. Often they cannot see the changes in themselves or will deny they are suffering believing they will just get over it.

Recent suicides highlight chronic stress officers face on the job

As much as veterans have hold of my heart, cops come in a very close second. There is a huge difference between the level and type of PTSD military and law enforcement personnel end up with. They do not just respond after the event happens. Their jobs require them to often participate in the event itself. They use weapons. They have to use violence in response to violence. They see others wounded and at the end of the day they wonder if tomorrow will be their day. Considering both professions come with a lot of hatred from too many people, it makes everything harder on them.

Wednesday I was speaking with a Chaplain for the Orlando police. He is a minister, a veteran and ex-motorcycle cop. He said that when a firefighter shows up, everyone is happy to see them but when a cop shows up, no one is happy. It usually means they are in trouble or totally upset because a crime has been committed against them.

The number of exposures to traumatic events add to all the stress they already feel.

Recent suicides highlight chronic stress officers face on the job
BY MAUREEN FEIGHAN THE DETROIT NEWS
JANUARY 29, 2012
Greg O'Dell was a respected law enforcement official and a married father of two when he drove his car to a residential street in Scio Township two days before Christmas last month, got out, and killed himself.

O'Dell, 54, the chief of the Eastern Michigan University Police Department, never told his colleagues he suffered from depression. Now, a month after his death, the department is trying to move forward while struggling to understand why a man who seemed to have it all would take his own life.

"He never let on that he had any issue," said Bob Heighes, Eastern's interim police chief.

In the past month, three men from public safety careers have died of suicide in southeast Michigan. Some public safety officials say it highlights the chronic stress law enforcement officers face and the challenges of persuading them to get help.

On Jan. 6, Daniel Armitage, an Ann Arbor firefighter whose wife had been hospitalized with domestic abuse injuries, lay down in traffic on Interstate 696 and was killed. Three days later, a border patrol agent stationed in Gibraltar killed himself in the parking lot of a Trenton hospital.

Studies show police officers have a higher suicide rate than the public. About 140 to 150 police officers kill themselves each year, or 17 per 100,000, according to Badge of Life, a group of active and retired police officers, medical professionals and surviving families of suicides from the U.S. and Canada. The rate for the general population is 11 per 100,000.

"Police officers are human," said John Violanti, a research associate professor at the University of Buffalo who has studied the suicide rates of police, military personnel and firefighters. "They not only have to put up with life's usual struggles, they also have to put up with this job that exposes them to death, human misery, abused kids. They can't get rid of this baggage and it eats at them."
read more here

Military suicides in Israel exposed by blogger

Anonymous blogger probe puts light on IDF suicides
By BEN HARTMAN
12/28/2012

Investigation by blogger "Eishton" leads army to release figures on soldiers suicide, sparking public debate.

The police and army investigation of an anonymous blogger has brought the issue of IDF suicides into the public arena, leading the military to release figures on soldiers who take their own lives, and sparking a debate on press intimidation in the country.

The investigation came to light on December 12, when blogger “Eishton” (a combination of the Hebrew words for “man” and “newspaper”) changed the banner of his blog.

“Eishton is currently under a combined police-military police investigation!! I am forbidden to speak about the details of the investigation, whose only purpose is to silence me, harm me and extort me into handing over private and protected information in order to incriminate myself and others,” the banner said.

“If this site crawls to a halt or stops being updated, know that this was done against my will and that I am being subjected to anti-democratic measures, which violate accepted journalistic ethics and censor information that the public has a right to know,” it added.

It later emerged that the probe had been launched in the wake of a three-part investigative report Eishton published beginning in April, which examined discrepancies in the official IDF death toll for 2011 and figures appearing on government-run memorial websites.

Though the Israeli press described the report as an exposé focusing solely on IDF suicides, the long, heavily researched series was based on efforts to determine the identities of all 126 fallen soldiers, independent of the issue of suicide.

Media coverage over the past two weeks led the army to release figures on soldier suicides.

The figures show that there were 14 suicides in the army this year, the lowest in at least 23 years. They indicate that in 2011 there were 21 IDF suicides, and that over the past seven years, the worst was 2010, when 28 soldiers took their own lives.

Before the army launched a program aimed at improving the way mental health issues are handled among soldiers, there were between 34 and 40 per year, the army said on Wednesday.

In his first post in April, Eishton wrote, “Who were these soldiers that the Left says died in vain? Who were these heroes that, because of them, the Right says our country is standing? The fact is, even with all the ceremonies and magic words – memorialization, heroism, memory – no one actually knows who our fallen soldiers are. I decided I would change that. I decided I would study and learn the stories of all 126 who died this past year.”
read more here

US Blogger exposed military suicides in 2007
MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2007
Cause of death, because they served
I went back in Army Times Records to March 2003. What I found is shocking. None of the sites I have trusted have included all of these deaths. When they die back here in the USA, their deaths are ignored. When they die by their own hand, they are forgotten. When they die because of health reasons, they are passed off as “oh well” instead of taking their deaths seriously. These deaths did not have to happen. What is worse is that while AP did their jobs reporting on these deaths, it looks as if Army Times paid attention, the families paid attention, but no one else did. The Hartford Courant, McClatchy News, CNN, ICasualties.org along with the other links provided cared. The families cared. We just didn't care enough. They died when they didn't need to die. Some because of health and some because their health was taken because of drugs they were forced to take. Some died because or murder and some by accident. Some, I am sure, are not even on this list or any other list. I tried to find as many as possible. Vehicle accidents are not included unless they are under investigation.

When they were buried I wonder if they played taps? They gave their lives becaue they served. Try to pass off one of their deaths to their families.

Another PTSD Veteran killed by police after shootout

Friends: Man Killed by Police Officer Struggled With PTSD
Suspect shot man outside of bar

Updated: Sunday, 27 Mar 2011, 6:19 PM MDT
Published : Sunday, 27 Mar 2011, 3:25 PM MDT

A man killed in a shootout with a Glendale police officer in the west valley early Saturday morning was apparently struggling with post traumatic stress disorder.

Jeremiah Wilson Pulaski, 24, of Glendale was shot to death after several rounds were exchanged between him and the officer.

FOX 10 has learned that Pulaski was a military veteran who returned to the U.S. in January, and he was having a difficult time dealing with the stress from his deployment and return.

Police said Pulaski had been involved in another shooting outside a Glendale restaurant just moments before he was stopped by the officer.

read more here
Man Killed by Police Officer Struggled With PTSD

The Arizona Senator, the man who wanted to be President, none other than John McCain said, "maybe you need this in New Jersey, but we don't need this in Arizona" when asked why he as against the suicide prevention bill. You'd think that as a Senator, he'd be very aware of what veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan come home with. It isn't just suicides but crimes committed because they didn't get the help they needed. Jeremiah Pulaski knew how to use a weapon but the man he shot was not killed, suggesting he didn't want to kill him. The man he shot was still shot over some words said. Pulaski's family and friends are left stunned by what happened as they prepare for a funeral that didn't need to happen. Police officers are dealing with a shooting that didn't need to happen.

Man killed in Glendale police shooting was war veteran

by Luci Scott - Mar. 27, 2011 03:52 PM
The Arizona Republic

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/03/27/20110327glendale-phoenix-man-killed-shooting-police-veteran0328.html#ixzz1HtboC1Sl
Ann Lupeika says that even though her step-nephew died in Phoenix, Jeremiah Pulaski was a victim of the war in Afghanistan.

Pulaski was fatally shot early Saturday morning by a Glendale police sergeant who authorities said was returning fire.

Pulaski 24, had recently returned from an Army stint in Afghanistan.


"He's my hero," said Lupeika. "I feel really bad that it came down to whatever happened that night."

Police said that about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, Jeremiah Wilson Pulaski and a friend left Tony's Cocktail Lounge near 59th Avenue and Greenway Road. A man approached them and the conversation turned hostile. Pulaski drew a handgun and shot the man, who did not suffer life-threatening injuries, police said.



Read more: Man killed in Glendale police shooting was war veteran

Defective weapon used by military kills hundreds a year

Defective weapon used by military kills hundreds a year
Wounded Times Blog
Kathie Costos
June 18, 2013

There is a weapon the Department of Defense has spent billions a year on. This weapon is more deadly to our own troops but no one seems care. The weapon is not used to kill opponents on the battlefield. The billions of dollars spent have been making contractors and stock holders very wealthy. It has also been filling graves.

What has the Department of Defense been claiming they have been doing on addressing military suicides? They have over 900 prevention programs but suicides have gone up every year. They claim they have addressed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and getting rid of the stigma with "resilience training" but the troops are still reluctant to even ask for help as the number of servicemen and women needing help rises.

What they claim has not been based on reality. This is their reality.

“The issue with PTSD is that so many Marines and sailors are not diagnosed or seeking treatment,” said Jim Askins, the department head of health promotions. “Marine Corps public health estimates that 10 to 30-percent are undiagnosed from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Marine and Navy team go to combat against PTSD
By THOMAS BRENNAN
Daily News Staff
Published: Tuesday, June 18, 2013

The awareness campaign, held on Friday at the Marine Corps Exchange aboard Camp Lejeune, brought together the Health Promotion and Wellness department from the Naval Hospital and the Marine Corps Community Services resiliency education department to de-stigmatize and raise awareness about a disorder that affects many service members. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a type of anxiety disorder that can occur after you have gone through an extreme emotional trauma that involved the threat of injury or death.

Their reality is they are still not seeking help because of what else is happening. Other than honorable discharges are still happening when most of them want to be treated so they can do the job they always wanted to do. They don't want to leave the military. Given the option to heal and stay in, most want to stay because they never thought of doing anything else but serving their country.

Their reality is, they are still receiving medications that do more harm than good. How many warnings on drugs do they need to read before they refuse to take them? How many times are they punished for what the medications are doing to them? How many warnings did the DOD need to hear before they acknowledged they are not monitoring the medicated?

Their reality is their families are falling apart because of what PTSD is doing to them but the military blames suicides on relationship problems while failing to acknowledge the simple fact that a third of the troops with PTSD do not seek help. No diagnosis, no tie to PTSD. They must be able to live with that fact and satisfied to use that excuse.

Their reality is, they are trained to not seek help. They are told they can train their brains to be resilient. If they end up with problems, the message prevents them from seeking help. Would you knowing there was the threat of being discharged with an "other than honorable" hanging over your head for the rest of your life when all you want to do is stay in? The message of telling them what they can do if they train right actually puts the blame on their shoulders. To them it means they are mentally weak and didn't train right.

How many times do you have to read on Facebook that another service member has taken their own life before you get clued in on what is behind it? How many times do you have to read about another OEF or OIF veteran taking their own life back home before you give a damn about what is going on? How many times do you have to read about what the reality is for the men and women risking their lives before you understand this weapon is the most deadly of all?

A more complete tally of U.S. military suicides last year: 524
LA TImes
By Alan Zarembo
June 17, 2013

In data compiled by the Defense Department on military suicides, perhaps the most surprising statistic is that between 2008 and 2011, 52% of service members who took their own lives had never been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq.

That figure, which challenges the popular belief that exposure to war is the primary driver of a surge in suicides, became the basis for an L.A. Times story Sunday.

But another statistic in the story also deserves attention: 524. That is the number of suicides in the military last year. To those who have followed the issue, it may seem like a misprint. The Pentagon recently announced that the 2012 total was 349.

The Defense Department, however, has only tracked suicides of military personnel who were on active duty when they died.

For a more complete tally, The Times went directly to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines for the data. That added three suicides to the Defense Department's figure, bringing the active-duty count for 2012 to 352. More significantly, it added 172 suicides of reservists and National Guard members who were on inactive status at the time of their deaths.

Little is known about the suicides of service members not on active duty. Military researchers say they are compiling and analyzing the demographics of the victims, their deployment histories and other characteristics. The Defense Department has yet to publish their suicide rate.

If they are discharged from the military, they are no longer a "military problem" and become a VA problem.

Military veteran who shot up mother's home goes to trial next week
Mother claims son, Adan Castaneda, has PTSD
Published On: Jun 17 2013

COMAL COUNTY, Texas

Maria Anna Esparza still can't believe her 27-year-old Marine sniper son, Adan Castaneda, shot at her home while she and her husband slept.

She said Adan had been home from Iraq for two years when the shooting happened.

"He was a scout sniper for the U.S. Marines, so if he wanted us dead, he knew where we slept, he knew exactly where we were in the house, but that was not his intention," said Esparza.

According to police, Adan used his own .45 caliber gun and fired off 23 shots. They said he started shooting at the top of the house and worked his way down.

Castaneda has been diagnosed with Posttraumatic stress disorder. Next week he will stand trial for attempted murder of his mother and stepfather after shooting up their house back in May 2011.
“They had to watch beheadings on their computers daily as part of their training,” said Esparza.

The reality for families is also much different than what we have been told.

Suicide rates among military family members are on the rise
Washington Times
Life Lines by Susan L Ruth
June 17, 2013

WASHINGTON, June 17, 2013—The last report tracking military suicides showed that there is no decrease in the rate of deaths by service members own hands and now there are other military suicides that are gaining attention.

Experts are reporting that they are seeing an increase in the number of military family members killing themselves as well, although the exact rates are not known because these cases are not being tracked at this time.

The growing rate of suicides among the military has been a problem that the chain of command has not been able to get under control since it came to light about 11 years ago.

This is why I wrote THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR. I listened to what the reality is for them and their families. The military however has not been listening to them. They are pushing the program that actually prevents them from understanding what PTSD is and seeking help to heal.

One last thing to leave you with is the fact that none of this is new. It has been researched for the last 40 years. Would you find it acceptable to spend billions a year on a weapon that was doing more harm than good for our own forces? UPDATE here is another report of not seeking help within the military.

‘You Have To Get Help’ — Vets Share Stories Of Living With PTSD
CBS News
June 18, 2013
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Jason Probst described what it was like last year in January when he was driving a vehicle down a street and hit a road side bomb in Afghanistan.

“It was like driving and hitting a wall,” he said.

The cab filled with smoke. He hit his head, causing a brain injury. He now deals with the aftermath of war in many ways."

Loud noises, and sudden noises startle me…and sleeping at night is different,” he said.

His mother, Deb Probst, remembers hearing news of the explosion and fearing the worst.

“So he had angels with him that day,” she said.

Probst has reached out for help at the VA but says there’s still a stigma associated with mental illnesses, like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Too Much To Be Aware of Lacking on Suicides

Basic Directions Missing in American Veterans
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 20, 2015


Years ago, while still living in Massachusetts, we were heading to Saco Maine to stay at a friend's summer house.

This was long before CPS and Google driving directions. I get lost getting out of a paper bag, so naturally, I got lost on this trip as well. I pulled into a gas station to get directions.

The attendant lifted the lid of his cap, scratched his head and said "Ya can't get there from here" and then went on to tell me that I had to go back to Route 1 to start all over again.

That is exactly where we are on preventing military suicides. We can't get there from where we are right now. We need to go back to where we got off before the instantaneous information gathering from Facebook and Twitter ended up trapping what we knew all along to become lost in assumptions and blanket statements on what PTSD really is and how it is the largest contributing factor.

While some talk about "22 a day" no one is really talking about current military suicides.
The Department of Defense releases suicide reports quarterly now.

"During the months of January through March of this year (2014), there were 74 suicides among service members in the active component, 24 suicides among service members in the reserves, and 22 suicides among service members in the National Guard."

What the numbers do not factor into the report is the number of current servicemembers has also gone down.

According to the DOD Personnel Workforce in June 2014 there were 1,384,986 serving but by December it was 1,369,482.  2015 began with 1,368,137 but by July the numbers were reduced to 1,354, 604.

For the last quarter of 2014

"In the fourth quarter of 2014, there were 69 suicides among service members in the active component, 21 suicides among service members in the reserves, and 18 suicides among service members in the National Guard."

For 2014 with over 15,000 less serving from June to December, the total for the year was,

In calendar year 2014, there were 268 confirmed suicides in the active component, up slightly from 254 in 2013; 79 in the reserve, down from 86 in 2013; and 87 in the National Guard, down from 134.

The Department of Defense released the suicide numbers for the first quarter of 2015

"In the first quarter of 2015, there were 57 suicides among service members in the active component, 15 suicides among service members in the reserve component and 27 suicides among service members in the National Guard."

That is 99 in 90 days, but why mention there were less in the first place? Seems like that would be a very important factor but all too often omitted from what we are reminded of. Add in the fact the DOD has been doing prevention training since around 2007 and this is a very distressing outcome.

Even more troubling are the number of younger veterans taking their own lives. They are triple their civilian peer rate, but the DOD doesn't have to count them. The DOD doesn't have to explain how all their prevention efforts failed them. They don't have to explain how those efforts couldn't even prevent the suicides of non-deployed troops but they expected it to work on those deployed repeatedly.

No link between combat deployment and suicides on Military Times April 1, 2015 released this.

Appearing in JAMA Psychiatry online on Wednesday, the study by researchers at the Defense Department's National Center for Telehealth and Technology, or T2, indicates that although the suicide rate among active-duty personnel has increased since 2001, the rate for those who deployed to a combat zone was roughly the same as for those who did not.

"This is an important finding. It shows those who separated from military service had a 63 percent higher suicide rate overall. ... Why are these people at higher risk, we don't have data to explain it," said Mark Reger, study lead author and deputy director of T2.

So we go on talking about the "22 a day" as if we learned something, but we haven't.  We haven't learned that all the prevention programs the DOD has been using to prevent them from taking their own lives has not worked in a decade for those in the military or those who left the military.  We don't talk about how all the programs, funding, charities and Congressional hearings have not worked.  What we really don't talk about is that all of these numbers in the Veteran Community would be even higher had it not been for the things that do work.

There is an article on Huffington Post, We Can Prevent Veteran Suicides by Rita Nakashima Brock Ph.D.

"One of the worst aspects of returning from combat and leaving the military is the extreme isolation. Talking about their pain can be nearly impossible because of the stoic ethic of military training. In addition, a veteran may believe he or she is no longer a good person because of having done "evil" or unforgivable things in combat. So they isolate themselves and shut down their capacities for intimacy, vulnerability, and connection to others.That isolation is compounded by the common desire to be back in combat--after the intense bonding and drama of war, ordinary life can seem dull, gray, and futile."

But that isn't something "new" that was learned. Point Man International Ministries has been addressing the "moral injury" spiritual component since 1984. For over 30 years, the work started by a Vietnam veteran Marine, Seattle Police Officer Bill Landreth, has been not just saving lives, but restoring veterans to a better quality of life as well as helping their families heal.

"In the past three years of such listening, I have found myself transformed for the better, including becoming a better listener. I've also been profoundly heartened in discovering how resilient and persistent moral conscience remains in the face of unimaginable trauma." Rita Nakashima Brock

After listening for over 30 years it is a wonderful experience seeing veterans go from total hopelessness to healing but there are not enough providing what they need to actually get there from where they are.

How does a man or woman go from being willing to sacrifice their life for the sake of someone else, be willing to endure hardship after hardship, separation from family and friends back home, train under some of the harshest conditions and then survive combat only to lose their life as a veteran who was supposed to be out of danger with everyone talking about how they are raising awareness?

With all this awareness raising, have we totally lost our ability to learn what history and facts have to teach us? Have we become so ignorant of our own shortcomings we fail to make ourselves aware of all the other factors behind the realities veterans live with everyday?

I am often contacted by family members after someone they loved died by their own hand.  They want to do something to spare another family from knowing that anguish so they decide to get involved with "awareness raising" when they do not know the basic facts and have not even begun to learn.  They are not prepared for what comes with the job they want to take on. They have no answers, no plans, no resources, no experts to send veterans in crisis to, yet they seek to raise awareness of the problems when veterans are fully aware, perhaps even more aware, of what the reality is for them.

They do not need be made aware of what has become part of their lives.  They need to be aware of the basic fact that their life does not have to be so painful, that there is hope of healing and where to get it.  They need to have answers, not slogans. How do they forgive and find peace? How do they forgive themselves for what they believe they did or did not do?

Most veterans have heard the number repeatedly but have not heard why that number has not changed after so many have been doing so much leading them down the wrong road.  Where is the hope in any of the "awareness" raising? There is hope in knowing more veterans heal and live better lives but there is more hope when these veterans finally know how they can get there too.

From where they have become lost on the road from there to nowhere, they need to know at what point they got lost in the first place and then they can find their way to where they want to go. Otherwise, they will just keep going in circles until they run out of gas and give up.

Police Officer suicide is a dark subject that many people prefer to avoid

PTSD and POLICE OFFICER SUICIDE – Two Dirty Secrets
Police Insider
MAY 29, 2013

Police Officer suicide is a dark subject that many people prefer to avoid.

The Martin Bouchard story brought back some painful memories for me.

Martin Bouchard (30) was an RCMP Officer who suffered from PTSD after working a posting in Shamatttawa, Manitoba, a troubled Indian Reservation 1,200 kilometers northeast of Winnipeg known for substance abuse and suicide.

In 2007, seventy-four (74) youths attempted suicide and a further eighty-two (82) made suicide threats. In the first five (5) months of 2008 thirty-seven (37) youths and ten (10) adults attempted suicide. Fifty-two (52) others told health care workers they intended to kill themselves. The youngest person to attempt suicide was a nine (9) year old child. (Source: Gladu.org “Many suicides in Shamattawa.”)

According to Bouchard’s wife Krista, the suicides and attempt suicides were the most traumatic events for Martin. Quoted in a Winnipeg Free Press article by reporter Rebekah Funk, Krista got to the crux of the matter, “The biggest thing was the hangers, they called them. They were cutting people out of the trees weekly for attempted suicides and suicides.”

Martin would be diagnosed with depression and PTSD, a devastating condition that affects countless men and women in Law Enforcement and the Military. Krista reports that Martin became a changed, angry and hostile man, factors that caused the couple to separate. Simply put, “the job” was eating Martin up.

On November 8, 2012, just four (4) days after handing in his badge, Martin Bouchard committed suicide.

Krista Bouchard links her husbands death to his ongoing struggle with PTSD and believes it was preventable if the RCMP had placed some priority on helping Martin cope with trauma he suffered as a result of his employment.
read more here

Rookies Hear Frank Suicide Talk From Cop’s Survivor

To Protect and Serve is what they intend to do, but maybe the word "Survive" should be added to that slogan. When you think of what they put themselves through on a daily basis, it should be obvious that sooner or later, it will all pile up on their minds.

When they die in the line of duty, it is a tragic price paid but we pass it off as they knew it would be possible considering the dangerous jobs they have, but when they die as a result of doing their jobs by their own hands, we tend to ignore all they have gone through.

My husband's brother-in-law was a cop in Massachusetts. He had a "drinking problem" and was often violent as a nasty drunk. His family was always on edge one way or the other. Either they were afraid he wouldn't come home from work because of his job or they were afraid he'd come home drunk because of his job. Either way, they felt lost.

When my husband's nephew was just a young teenager, he came home from school one day and found his father in his uniform on the floor in a pool of blood. He shot himself. A few years later, this same teenager was in Vietnam.

While there is a danger associated with police work, we also need to factor in the fact that many in the National Guards and Reserves are also police officers. When we talk about dwell time in between deployments, these men and women spend their dwell time with their lives on the line on a daily basis. They never have time to readjust back into peaceful life.

Here is a story about a cop that wanted to stay on the job no matter what happened to him before. It ended up costing him his family and ultimately his life.

The government estimates that up to 6 percent of cops have diagnosable PTSD. In 2008, there were 141 police suicides across the country, which is higher than the national average.

Rookies Hear Frank Suicide Talk From Cop’s Survivor
by Abram Katz Mar 18, 2010 7:48 am


Janice McCarthy carries a certain melancholy that few radiate but the spouses and survivors of a police officer’s suicide.

McCarthy carried that melancholy this week to the New Haven Police Academy this week. She spoke to cadets and supervisors about stress, post traumatic stress disorder, and suicide, which frequently follows unless the cycle is somehow broken.

Tuesday was McCarthy’s third visit in as many weeks to the police academy on the Sherman Parkway, to tackle a problem that confronts too many cops yet doesn’t often make it into their training curriculum.

“It’s very healing for me to do this,” she said.

McCarthy spoke to 35 supervisors for about 2 hours, and to 40 cadets for an hour and a half. It was part of an effort by Lt. Ray Hassett (pictured above with McCarthy) to prepare budding cops to recognize and deal with signs of post-traumatic stress on the job.

McCarthy, 46 and the mother of three, told the officers and cadets about the traumas that her former husband, Paul McCarthy, endured before shooting himself in the chest at about 7:30 p.m. at the junction of Route 28 and Interstate 95, in Canton, about 30 miles southwest of Boston.

read more of this here

Rookies Hear Frank Suicide Talk From Cops Survivor

The police suicide problem
Being a cop is a dangerous job -- and not just for the obvious reasons. Suicide kills more officers every year than homicides or accidents at work. But what does society owe the families of those for whom this high-stress job is too much to take? One widow answers: respect.
By Julia Dahl
January 24, 2010

Early on the afternoon of July 28, 2006, Captain Paul McCarthy of the Massachusetts State Police put on his blue trooper uniform, holstered his gun, and got into the driver’s seat of his police cruiser. McCarthy was despondent, exhausted from 13 years of physical and emotional pain. It all began on an overtime shift back in 1993: a snowy March midnight when a man driving a stolen MBTA bus bulldozed his cruiser, crushing his legs and trapping him inside the vehicle. After that came the surgeries and months spent learning to walk again. He fought hard and, defying doctors’ predictions, after a year and a half made it back to active duty in the only job he’d ever wanted.

Paul McCarthy began stuttering and picking fights at work. He was diagnosed in 1994 with post-traumatic stress disorder, and for years, Janice says, she begged her husband to quit. She nursed him through three more on-the-job injuries and shouldered most of the work of raising their children while he kept passing promotion exams and sinking deeper into mental illness. His supervisors made a record of his “bizarre” behavior, and in 2001 Paul was suspended, Janice says, and had his gun confiscated while he underwent yet another psychiatric evaluation. A department doctor wrote then that while Paul was “technically fit” for duty, “it is more likely than not that he will deteriorate when he returns to his former setting.” Still, he was cleared for duty, given his gun, and sent back to work.

read more of this here

The police suicide problem

Florida among the highest for veteran suicides

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 28, 2014

1,150,000 calls in the VA crisis line yet suicides are higher than before it started. The military suicides have increased after their "prevention" programs started. When we read a million and a half veterans called at the point of ending their own lives, it shows different things need to be done, not more of the same.

Too many veterans feel isolated when they leave the military. While the percentage of suicides in the military are up, the number of suicides is down because of discharges they no longer have to count.

Today I was in Melbourne to film hundreds of bikers escorting the Traveling Wall into Wickham Park. The Vietnam and All Veterans Reunion is one of the biggest events in the country. Most of the time events in Central Florida are attended by huge groups of veterans. We have the third highest population, slightly behind Texas at number two and California with the most.

Over the ten years I have lived here, it gets harder and harder to read reports like this. It isn't just the sadness from lives lost, but more knowing what is possible for so many others and wondering why all veterans don't find the same sense of family. Is it a secret hidden from them? Didn't anyone tell them that trying to "fit" back in with civilians is not worth the effort?

Had they really wanted to fit in with civilians, they wouldn't have been tugged to join the military. They would have done what everyone else was doing. Thinking of others is not what your average person does beyond their own families.

Volunteers give their time and their love but that is spare time. They don't really fit in with other groups of people never understanding what it is like to do what they do. Members of fire departments don't fit in with other groups. Police officers don't fit in with other groups. So why would veterans want to fit in with other groups?

There is a bond that goes far beyond what co-workers experience. Risking your life for the sake of someone else if something few appreciate and even less understand.

If you are a veteran in Florida, join up with other groups just like you and then you'll know, you belong right where you are, with others you can lean on and be there for them.

Reading this report with over a million calls to the Veterans crisis lines with a rise in suicides proves the need to have "family" standing by your side and they need you just as much.

Military, veteran suicides account for nearly one in every four in Florida ... but the numbers don't explain why
Rate is one of the nation's highest
Florida Times Union
By Clifford Davis
Apr 26, 2014

“Since its inception, the crisis line has had over 1,150,000 calls,” said Thompson of the VA’s suicide prevention program. “That’s pretty extraordinary. We’re so glad we’ve had that many calls, but of course it’s heartbreaking that people need to reach out that much.”

Petty Officer 2nd Class David Faithful dreamed of becoming a pilot but — with only a high school education — he knew that was not going to happen anytime soon.

Instead, he became a parachute rigger for ejection seats in Navy aircraft.

It wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but he did his job.

“He did OK with it for a while,” said his mother, Cindy Faithful.

She said her son battled bouts of depression since he was about 17. “He would go through spells where he was really good and then spells where he was not so good.”

Medication would help, but the 25-year-old Faithful knew if he agreed to take psychiatric drugs he would lose his security clearance and his job at Jacksonville Naval Air Station.

“He said his life was a tragedy, a bad movie,” Cindy Faithful said.

“The night before he died, he came up to me and hugged me,” said Cindy Faithful. “He told me, ‘Mom, I really love you and I appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me. I think everything is going to be OK.’ ”

The next day his father found him inside his car — wearing his dress white uniform — in their garage, dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.

STATE NUMBERS STAGGERING

In Florida, the numbers are staggering.

Although veterans make up only 8 percent of the state’s population, they accounted for more than 25 percent of its suicides, according to the report.

Between 1999 and 2011, 31,885 suicides were reported in the state, according to the Florida Department of Health. That would mean more than 8,000 Florida veterans took their lives during those 13 years, according to the VA.

The numbers put Florida among states with the highest percentage of veteran suicides — but the numbers don't explain why.

“We’re still trying to figure that out,” said Caitlin Thompson, the deputy director of Suicide Prevention at the VA.

With such daunting statistics, it’s easy to forget that behind every suicide is a circle of family and friends that will deal with the pain and the often-unanswered question of why.

Increasingly, veterans who commit suicide are not men in their 50s and 60s. Suicides for veterans of that age group have remained steady or declined.

Yet, suicides by veterans from 18 to 29 have jumped from 40.3 to 57.9 per 100,000 from 2009 to 2011, a 44 percent increase, the VA announced earlier this year.
read more here

Suicide Awareness Missing in Action

Liberty to lie should never be acceptable or profitable
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 13, 2018

People have not just taken the liberty to lie, they have made it seem acceptable. That is what is going on all over the country when someone uses veterans committing suicide as a cause for them to become a celebrity.

Sometimes they just don't know what the truth is. If they don't, then we need to be asking how they expect to change anything if they do not know what the facts are. How much time did they spend on researching the topic verses gaining publicity? What is it they hope to accomplish by "raising awareness" when they didn't even think to become aware of what works to change the ending they claim is so important to them? Veterans already know they are killing themselves. They don't know how to heal!

There is proof that Suicide Awareness has not worked in the last decade but no one has had to explain why they not only keep doing it, but deserve donations to continue to be so lax they do not even understand the solution. Any wonder why it has gotten worse for veterans to survive being back home?

These groups do not even mention the number of suicides while still in the military either.

Veterans over the age of 50 are 65% of the suicides, yet none of these groups paid attention to that fact. Why are they being left out of all this "awareness" all these new groups keep getting publicity for?

We have to start calling them out for a reason. Suicide only happens because people lose hope. If they keep pushing the number they grabbed from a headline, without bothering to read the damn reports, then all they are doing is showing veterans they really don't matter while putting the spotlight on too many veterans giving up.

This is an extremely complicated topic. There is far too much casual care folks are not aware of. Top that off with the simple fact that "raising awareness" has not done any good over the last decade.

Here are some headlines;

Illinois:
A unique way to raise awareness for veteran suicides

At a busy intersection in Georgetown is Patriot Park. Layton Warstler said "I can sit here and kind of reflect and remember all the veterans who have lost their lives in this town".But he didn't want to stay for a moment, he wanted to camp for 22 days raising awareness for veterans who commit suicide.He said he was "representing the 22 veterans on average that kill themselves and then voluntarily making myself homeless to bring awareness to homeless veterans".

Idaho:
Marine fighting against veteran suicides through non profit

BOISE, Idaho — According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, twenty-two veterans a day commit suicide. A Boise man is trying to help bring awareness to this disturbing trend. Last year after losing a friend he started Ride for 22 to further his cause. December 28th he ended up taking his own life,” Steven Exceen said.

Veteran suicide rate in spotlight as Easthampton Savings Bank execs join local police in no-shave 'Manuary'

What are they doing?

Murphy is one of dozens of Easthampton and Holyoke police officers growing beards during the month of January to raise funds for Twenty Two Until None, a non-profit devoted to ending veteran suicide.

That is the claim but when you go onto the site, you need to read it for yourself. How can any group be "devoted" without doing any basic research as to what has already been done over the last 40 years so they know what works and then do it? How can they claim to regard this topic as worthy of their time if they do not invest that time in even reading the reports? How do they expect to change the outcome when resources they list are to other places?

*******UPDATE*******

GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY, Mich., (WPBN/WGTU) -- Students from two Traverse City high schools presented a $13,000 check to a veteran suicide prevention group.

During halftime at Friday night's Traverse City Central vs. Traverse City West basketball game students gave the check to 22 2 None.

*******

A few things seem like really good steps when their site lists helping the homeless and giving veterans emergency funds.

Police Officers are participating without knowing the truth. They are not doing it for police officers committing suicide, but supposedly for veterans without even reading the reports that the groups name derived from.

This was reported by Associated Press on Law Enforcement suicides.

Studies show there are about 125 to 150 officer suicides a year and more than 200,000 officers are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or some other form of emotional stress 

 They need to stop and actually gain some knowledge if they really intend to change the outcome. Do they know the "22 a day" VA report came from just 21 states limited data? Do they know why it was "limited data" at all?

For starters, California and Illinois did not have military service on their death certificates. Over 2 million in California and over 700,000 in Illinois were not included in on any of the research. 

The CDC did not count them on the following report if they were not honorably discharged because no state will allow them to have military service checked off on their death certificate. In some states, military service has to be connected to a "War" or they are not allowed to indicated it.

There are over 400,000 charities all over the country geared toward veterans. Over and over again, we read about them, what they claim and then read the reports showing the actual results of those claims.

Is the general public actually that disconnected from reality? Are members of the veterans community actually that disconnected from their own brothers and sisters? Are families actually that deluded they join the groups pushing a number that does not exist when one of their own was missing from that number as well as their lives?

Are we serious about any of this or not?

UPDATE Continued,
Really sorry that when awareness began, it was actually needed in the hopes that the people with the power to do something about it...would do it.  Some did, but mostly, people just did what they wanted to.

Aware: having or showing realization, perception, or knowledge

Beware: to be wary of

we must … beware the exceedingly tenuous generalization

 

 —Matthew Lipman

This is when veterans needed the public to be aware of what was happening to them when they were supposed to be safety back home from war. This is from The Suicide Wall

One Vietnam Veteran, who had been suicidal and wishes to remain anonymous, said, "After reading Suicide Wall, I am determined never to have my name on such a memorial."

In Chuck Deans' book, Nam Vet., printed in 1990 by Multnomah Press, Portland, Oregon, 97226, the author states that "Fifty-eight thousand plus died in the Vietnam War. Over 150,000 have committed suicide since the war ended". According to this book, Chuck Dean is a Vietnam Veteran who served in the 173rd Airborne, arriving in Vietnam in 1965. At the time the book was written, Mr. Dean was the executive director of Point Man International, a Seattle based, non-profit support organization dedicated to healing the war wounds of Vietnam Veterans.While doing research for his novel, Suicide Wall, Alexander Paul contacted Point Man International and was given the name of a retired VA doctor, and conducted a phone interview with him. In that interview, the doctor related that his estimate of the number of Vietnam Veteran suicides was 200,000 men, and that the reason the official suicide statistics were so much lower was that in many cases the suicides were documented as accidents, primarily single-car drunk driving accidents and self inflicted gunshot wounds that were not accompanied by a suicide note or statement. According to the doctor, the under reporting of suicides was primarily an act of kindness to the surviving relatives. 

April 05, 2007

Non-combat deaths-Non caring media and was followed up with this. 
April 16, 2007  Cause of death, because they served

Gee silly me, I thought that we were supposed to be helping veterans want to stay here instead of telling them how many we think decided to leave this earth!

McCain calls suicide prevention overreach and blocks bill

McCain calls suicide prevention an "overreach" and blocks bill! If all the parents out there visiting the cemetery this year for Christmas instead of sitting down with their veteran son/daughter watched this video about McCain, they would line up in front of his house and demand he resign from the Senate.
McCain told Representative Rush Holt "Don't give me a lecture" as Holt tried to explain this crisis.

John McCain blocks troop suicide prevention program



Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

From MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell blog:

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, who admitted in his memoir to attempting suicide while held captive as a P.O.W. in Vietnam for 5 1/2 years, is responsible for blocking funding for a suicide prevention program aimed at military reserve troops returning home from combat.

McCain blocks suicide prevention bill

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Military suicide prevention efforts fail: report

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 23, 2010

(Reuters) - Efforts to prevent suicides among U.S. war veterans are failing, in part because distressed troops do not trust the military to help them, top military officials said on Thursday.

Poor training, a lack of coordination and an overstretched military are also factors, but a new 76-point plan lays out ways to improve this, Colonel John Bradley, chief of psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, told a conference.

Bradley said a team of experts spent a year interviewing troops who had attempted suicide, family members and others for the report and plan, presented last month to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is due to report to Congress in 90 days.

"They tell us again and again that we are failing," Bradley told a symposium on military medicine sponsored by the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation.

Each branch of the services -- the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines -- rushed to create a suicide prevention program, but there was no coordination. The report recommends that the defense secretary's office take over coordination of suicide prevention efforts.

On-the-ground prevention training often failed because those running the sessions did not understand their importance, Bradley said.

"They are mocked and they are probably harmful," he said.

According to the report, available at www.health.mil/dhb/default.cfm, 1,100 servicemen and women committed suicide in 2005 to 2009 -- one suicide every day and a half. The Army's suicide rate doubled in that time.

About 1.9 million U.S. service men and women have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

read more here
Military suicide prevention efforts fail: report

The Marines have reported the numbers have gone down, but they have reported drops in the past only to be followed up by another increase. While it is hopeful, it is not impressive. As you can see, we just keep losing them after they have survived combat operations but could not survive with the aftermath of combat.

Yet with these numbers, the National Guards and Reservists have a harder time surviving because when they return home, they are expected to and expect themselves to, just get back to their "normal" lives with no support system and a disconnected civilian circle surrounding them. He told Holt that "Maybe you need something like this in New Jersey, but we don't need it in Arizona." Too bad he must not read the newspaper from Tucson when they also carried the following report on this link. Civilian soldiers' suicide rate alarming

Civilian soldiers' suicide rate alarming
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
National Guard soldiers who are not on active duty killed themselves this year at nearly twice the rate of 2009, marring a year when suicides among Army soldiers on active duty appear to be leveling off, new Army statistics show.

Eighty-six non-active-duty Guard soldiers have killed themselves in the first 10 months of 2010, compared with 48 such suicides in all of 2009.

The reason for the rise in suicides among these "citizen soldiers" is not known. It may be linked to the recession, says Army Col. Chris Philbrick, deputy commander of an Army task force working to reduce suicides.

Philbrick said investigations into the suicides of soldiers not on full-time-active status have found that some were facing stressful situations such as home foreclosures, debt and the loss of a job.

Other factors have played a role in the suicides, including relationship problems, depression, substance abuse, combat stress and mild brain injuries, Philbrick says.

The rise comes as the rate of suicides leveled among full-time active-duty Army soldiers, National Guard members and reservists following years of increases, Philbrick says. Among that group, there were 132 confirmed or suspected suicides in the first 10 months of this year compared with 140 such suicides for the same period in 2009.

That positive trend among active-duty troops was more than offset by the rise in suicides among non-active-duty National Guard members.

There were 252 confirmed or suspected suicides among active and non-active Army members through October of this year. There were 242 such deaths in all of 2009.

read more of this here
Civilian soldiers' suicide rate alarming

McCain must not know anything about this either.

National Guard sergeant from Phoenix found dead outside armory

by Alicia E. Barrón
azfamily.com
Posted on August 7, 2010 at 5:59 PM
Updated Saturday, Aug 7 at 6:02 PM

PHOENIX - A homicide investigation is underway involving the United States Military in Phoenix.

The body of a National Guard soldier was discovered Saturday morning in a parking lot next to the city's armory.

The victim has been identified as 45-year old Karl Markovic. Phoenix police say another National Guard member discovered him in the parking lot a few hours after he was supposed to report for drill.

read more

National Guard sergeant from Phoenix found dead outside armory

But in all of this, to tell Holt that it is not needed in Arizona, McCain forgets that he has run his entire political life as being a veteran and a POW. He forgets that the laws and bills passed in Washington are not about one state over another but for all states which he has been a senator long enough that he should know that. These men and women are coming home from doing what he voted for them to do but he can't manage to do anything for them when they come home? How dare he be so callous? How dare he use his title of being a veteran and then turn his back on every veteran in this country? How dare the people of Arizona put him back into office over and over again when he has voted against veterans over and over again?

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Five veteran suicide rescues in a two-hour period—so John McCain blocks suicide prevention
December 22, 2010 posted by Chaplain Kathie

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) Blocks suicide prevention measure
A small crisis group gets calls all the time from veterans in crisis. Considering these men and women know what it is like to face death on a daily basis, reaching the point where all seems hopeless indicates a crisis itself, we fail to grasp how serious this is. Yet on one night this same small crisis group had to rescue 5 suicidal veterans!
read more here
http://woundedtimes.blogspot.com/2010/12/five-veteran-suicide-rescues-in-two.html