More Australian Defence Force veterans have killed themselves this YEAR than those who died in combat in Afghanistan due to post-traumatic stress disorders
More soldiers committed suicide in 2016 than were killed in Afghanistan
The Department of Veteran Affairs have been slammed by former soldiers
They said the Department force them into lengthy battles for support
So they pulled stunts, just like here in the US. The headline from 2017 is this. Veterans' 2017 suicide toll is 84, say activists
Loren Ries drew this on a road in Huonville, Tasmania, for the Veteran Chalk Challenge to draw attention to 84 Australian veterans' suicides in 2017. Photo: Supplied
Mr Steley said the 84 figure "is a conservative estimate and only the deaths that veterans themselves can confirm as the government is still unwilling to even attempt to keep a record of the number of deaths".
Mr Steley said the veterans had "offered so much to Australia and our government to protect them; now when they need help they are being either ignored or actively targeted by an uncaring, inflexible system." read more here
Suicide Stunts Rewarded, Truth Ignored Combat PTSD Wounded Times Kathie Costos December 2, 2017 Several months ago, I had a lengthy session with a young veteran. He had no clue what PTSD was, why he had it, what it was doing to his family or even the simple fact that he could actually heal with the right help.
What made all this worse, was even though he was broke, he was spending money on the group he was hearing about from his friends. He wanted to put a tattoo on his neck with "22KILL" until his eyes were open to things that could actually keep him from becoming one of the veterans committing suicide. That is the number every family left behind knows about, the one that was part of them. The other thing the veteran assumed was that the veterans he heard about committing suicide were the OEF and OIF generation. He didn't know the majority of veterans committing suicide were actually over the age of 50. These veterans did not merit any efforts from the "awareness" raisers. The veterans without "honorable discharges" were not worthy of anyone paying attention to them or even the simple fact they were not included in any report. Didn't matter if they had been deployed once, twice or even ten times, because if they were given a bad discharge, they could not claim anything connected to "veteran status" on anything. When he knew some of the basic facts, such as the "22" came from limited data from just 21 states, he was furious. He wondered why none of the "awareness" folks told him anything he actually needed to know. Here is the suicide report they must have not read or understand that this was in it.
Currently available data include information on suicide mortality among the population of
residents in 21 states. Veteran status in each of these areas is determined by a single question
asking about history of U.S. military service. Information about history of military service is
routinely obtained from family members and collected by funeral home staff and has not been
validated using information from the DoD or VA.
Or, even know that while California and Texas veterans were not in the report, California did not have military service on their deaths certificates, and Illinois didn't, plus some other states. California has the highest number of veterans and Texas is the second largest, plus last time I heard, we had 50 states. But this is how the VA got the number on page 19.
The estimated number of Veterans who died from suicide each day was calculated as the
percentage of all suicides identified as Veterans multiplied by the number of suicides in the
U.S. and divided by the number of days in a year. The estimated number of Veterans who
have died from suicide is based on data obtained from 21 states and has been calculated
using service history as reported on death certificates
Here is the link to the one from 2016 but yet again, when they included California, if the veteran was not in the VA system, they would have no way of knowing if the person committing suicide was a veteran or not. Remember they just passed a bill to have military service added to their death certificates. It is bad enough when reporters do not do any research when they cover stunts about a topic as serious as veterans committing suicide. It is even worse when these groups are given awards for them. Omar N. Bradley “Spirit of Independence” Award recipient.
The award has been given to outstanding American Citizens and organizations, according to a news release. He is the first person to be awarded the "Spirit of Independence" award since Gen. Charles C. "Hondo" Campbell in 2011.
And why was it "earned"
22KILL began as a social media movement to raise awareness of the suicide epidemic in 2013 with the “22 Push-up Challenge,” and became a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 2015. The name is derived from the average of 22 veterans who die by suicide per day.
Yes, those guys. The ones that have Police Officers and Firefighters doing pushups for a number that was not even close to the truth, all the while, ignoring their own committing suicide. Their suicides have gone up but you don't see stunts for them. I am far from alone going after these groups. More and more are trying to tell the truth so that veterans will actually become aware of what they need to know, instead of what some want them to hear. One of the responses that sticks out in my head the most is when I confronted someone who believed she could do a lot better than anyone else. When I explained facts, she got defensive. Her response summed up exactly what is going on. "22 is an easy number to remember." Here is another group trying to get this right.
The main problem with this is not the cause, it’s the tactic. As military veterans know, intelligence doesn’t exist just so the military can learn about an enemy. Intelligence exists to enable the military to defeat an enemy.
Likewise, awareness doesn’t do much. You can know a problem exists. That doesn’t mean you are any closer to solving the problem. There are a lot of diseases and societal issues with different color ribbons and special days for awareness, but not a lot of solutions. Veterans dying by suicide has been all over the news since the Department of Veterans Affairs scandal broke in April 2014.
If you really want to do something meaningful, stop supporting the groups raising awareness because it is an easy number to remember. Help get the facts out there or as we've already seen, those groups get attention of the press, donations they never have to explain, but the number of families left behind grows far beyond what any of these groups will ever pay attention to.
It got worse for the only veterans they want to talk about along with the other veterans they totally ignored!
Check these links to learn more about what the press didn't bother to learn about.
This could go on and on but it is a start for you to learn. If you want to change the outcome, change what you are supporting and start actually supporting the veterans you want to see living instead of dying.
Vietnam Veterans Left Behind
Combat PTSD Wounded Times Kathie Costos September 30, 2017 Last day of Suicide Awareness Month and it was pretty much the same as all other years. Numbers only mattered to those seeking attention, but not seeking to change the conversation to helping them find something worth living for. Most of the suicides are tied to PTSD because they felt hopelessness. They no longer believed one more day would be worth one more try. About a year ago, a woman stood up during a group meeting. I had known her for many years. She said that there were 22 veterans a day killing themselves. Then she went on to say that she was going to do something about it. I was sitting there, stunned by the slap on the face she had delivered to me after over three decades of actually doing the work to save lives. It is almost as if she woke up one day and thought that she was the only one to attempt to change the outcome. Stunningly, she had not thought to learn one thing about anything other than the headline she latched onto.
There is a lot of that going on all over the country. Folks read a headline, but won't read the actual report the number came from. The woman told me that all I talk about are Vietnam veterans. Yep, never one bothered to read my site.
While it is true that I do focus more on Vietnam Veterans, she didn't have a clue. So here is my confession about my magnificent obsession.
Thirty-five years ago, I fell in love with a Vietnam veteran. Thirty-three years ago today, I became his wife. Whatever I know about PTSD and our veterans, I learned because I loved him first.
Learning about why he was so different from my Dad and Uncles, all veterans, I discovered the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the library. I had to read clinical books with a dictionary. I did not set out to turn this into a lifetime vocation. I just wanted to know what I was getting into before I had fallen too deeply in love. The more I learned, the more I knew, there was no turning back.
These veteran are so different from any other generation. They came home to a nation where they were not welcomed or wanted. To families not wanting to hear their voices or ask a single question. They were told to "just get over it" and get on with their lives.
What they turned around and did, has changed the world. They fought for all the research on PTSD and made the government acknowledge this wounded of war all other generations had come home with, was in fact, their responsibility.
Because of this, civilians ended up reaping what healing they had begun. Mental Health centers, Crisis Intervention Teams, the list goes on, are due to their struggles during the 70's and 80's when no one wanted them around.
In 1978 the DAV commissioned a study called the Forgotten Warrior Project. Everything we know about combat and PTSD, came from what these veterans fought for, yet once again, they have been forgotten.
As the woman did not know anything she pretended to care about, the fact is, far too many have the same attitude.
Vietnam veterans, and other veterans over the age of 50, are 65% of the veterans committing suicide in this nation everyday, but you wouldn't know that if you listen to all the folks running around the country raising awareness, while these veterans are stunned to discover once again, they simply don't matter enough to count.
The truth is, far too many veterans don't really count because too many want to count what they cannot see. The CDC knows how many Americans commit suicide, or at least come close to the number, but they do not know how many are in fact, veterans. States like California and Illinois did not have military service on their death certificates, so they did not get counted. The CDC did not know they were there. They only knew those lives ended by suicide but not suicide after risking their lives for others.
I care about all veterans but my beloved Vietnam veterans are suffering still in silence. It isn't that they are not screaming for help. It is because the nation has once again turned deaf to what they want to tell.
As they face retirement, so many decades after coming home, raising families, working jobs and contributing to society, they are discovering PTSD had not left them unharmed. It was simply sleeping while they got too busy to notice.
Yet, what do all the suicide activist-stunt-publicity hawks do? They delude the public into thinking they are the ones to do something about it. The conversation in the Veterans community is that these people are repulsive. Worse, is when it is a veteran doing the awareness raising, because it is a betrayal by one of their own.
This is one of the first videos I did on PTSD because of what I learned from Vietnam veterans. After 35 years, they were first in my heart and they will never be last on my list!
All of US Needs to Apologize to Veterans
Combat PTSD Wounded Times Kathie Costos September 26, 2017 It seems that everyone in this country is offended by something and they demand their feelings be respected. Well, I'm jumping on that platform too! I won't take a knee in protest but I will, as I have, in prayer. I will not bow low but will hop on top of the highest soapbox I can find. (And I hate heights) I will not sit down in indifference while others take walks--do pushups--pull stunts to get attention for themselves while pretending to care about the fact that more veterans are committing suicide while they do absolutely nothing to change the outcome. While some think that "suicide awareness" is new, it isn't and it hasn't improved the outcomes.
And yet again, most cases of suicides tied to military service are tied to PTSD after they survived combat!
The truth is this country has been trying to "prevent" suicides longer than I've been alive.
In 1958, the first suicideprevention center in the United States opened in Los Angeles, California, with funding from the U.S. Public Health Service. Other crisis intervention centers followed. In 1966, the Center for Studies of Suicide Prevention (later the Suicide Research Unit) was established at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This was followed by the creation of national nonprofit organizations dedicated to the cause of suicide prevention.
But just like then, people got paid to try to do something but too many thought that anything was better than nothing. They were wrong.You can get some basic facts to get you started on this here or search this site with military suicides in the search field. For now, this will be long enough on its own. The line of people needing to apologize to veterans is a long one. Top of the list: Awareness Raisers If you are running around the country asking for money to raise awareness, I think you should be included as the biggest part of the problematic outcome. What did you think you'd accomplish? Fame and fortune for yourself or getting a veteran to take the gun away from his/her head when you couldn't even be bothered to read the fucking report you stole the headline from? The reports are out there and if you gave a shit, the way you pretend you do, then you'd actually read the reports and where the data came from, as well as what was left out! Then if the cause was worth any real effort, you'd actually invest some time in finding out what the hell you were up against, like managing to grasp the fact that the DOD has their numbers and the number of veterans reported does not include them. You'd also be aware of the fact that the majority of the veterans committing suicide are OVER THE AGE OF 50 AND THEY ARE THE ONES YOU IGNORE! If you didn't do anything to honestly earn the money, then give it to the families that had to bury their family member. Congress Oh, Congress! You need to apologize for not even bothering to figure out if the Bills you want your names on will actually do any good or not before you hold a news conference to act as veterans really matter. We've read all of them going over the last deadly decade to know that none of you really have a clue. Hell, especially when you're repeating numbers that are not real and the biggest culprits are ignoring the fact that their own state DOES NOT HAVE MILITARY SERVICE ON THE DEATH CERTIFICATES TO EVEN BE INCLUDED IN ANY OF THE NUMBERS BEING REPORTED AS "FACT." And last on the list to save some time, since this could go on forever, is me! For 35 years I have been unable to figure out how to make sure that we stop burying more after war than we do during it. I've been watching it all, reading more than most would even know had been printed. I have invested more hours in this work than I get paid to do on my job and this site is just one of many I've had over the years. It has been up for 10 years! No matter how much I know, how hard I try, I cannot unshed a single tear a family member has wiped at a grave that did not need to be dug. No matter how much I love veterans I dedicated more than half my life to, I can never give you back the lost days of anguished cries for help when no one was there to hear you. No matter how much I know personally what it is like to see one of them decide to leave as questions become poison to hope, I cannot even pretend to know what it is like when some are truly dedicated and have far too many they tried to help, still kill themselves. I have a hard time dealing with one I lost. No matter how hard I pray or how many times my soul cries out for a way to help you heal, to let you know that tomorrow can be so much better than today, I have not found a way to make you believe it. No matter how hard, how much work, knowledge and facts I have, I cannot compete with social media isolating you from what you need to know. So yes, dear heart, I apologize for not being good enough to give you what you need and take your pain away so you can feel your soul's worth again! I do promise, I will not stop trying!
I am on vacation/staycation and this was not a great way to wake up this morning. My email opened with a link to a report on the "22 Pushup" stunt and I debated on opening it or not. Now I wish I just trashed it. This is from Canada. Pretty much shows that it is easier to just do what is popular than do what works.
Hillbilly Burlesque will feature this "22 Push Up National Challenge."
"PUSHUP CHALLENGE: Country singer-songwriter Jessie Tylre Williams will be entertaining July 22 at Memorial Park during the 22 Push-up National Challenge. Williams, known for the album This Road, says she’s just as happy working with Manitoba Pilates, Advantage Conditioning and other fitness centres to start conversations going about post-traumatic stress disorder, and to eliminate the stigma attached to it."
But those are not the numbers of veterans killing themselves in Canada. Those are the "reported" numbers of veterans committing suicide in the US 2012 VA Suicide Report.
The other thing that no one is talking about are the ages of the veterans committing suicide. I actually read news reports with "22 a day" and post-9-11 veterans. Well here are the facts on that.
You would have known that if reporters managed to add in facts when they do articles on something as serious as veterans surviving combat but not able to survive long after the danger to their lives was supposed to have ended.
This stuff does not work and the folks behind it make no attempt to even claim to be doing anything about changing the outcome on US veterans committing suicide. They are all about talking about the "problem" they felt no need to become educated on. Ya! In other words, like the Lifelock commercial, they are not going anything about the problem, they are monitoring it. They are not even really doing that when it seems they must have forgotten there is an actual report about the number they raise money to make people aware of. To read it being spread out in Canada, as well as other nations, proves that too few are actually taking any of this seriously enough and reducing lives down to number that are not real. Canada has a lot less veterans to worry about, so maybe their numbers are just not as headline grabbing as the US.
The 31 fallen are part of a larger troubling statistic. A continuing Globe and Mail investigation has uncovered that at least 70 soldiers and veterans died by suicide after returning from the Afghanistan operation – nearly one-third higher than the 54 revealed by the newspaper one year ago.
Apparently Canada isn't sure about how many veterans they are losing to suicide. This is all very depressing since Canada has taken the lead on treating their police officers and firefighters for PTSD, far beyond what the US has done.
Reminder, those are percentages, and not numbers from the VA on that chart. Notice how much they have changed? That is because they really haven't other than the rate of female veterans is higher now than it was in 2001. Why do the challenge to raise awareness when no nation has actually lived up to the fact they were challenged when the first reports came out?
Veterans Search For Hope, Find Deadly Gimmick Combat PTSD Wounded Times Kathie Costos February 18, 2017 The definition of Gimmick is
"1. an ingenious or novel device, scheme, or stratagem, especially one designed to attract attention or increase appeal.
2. a concealed, usually devious aspect or feature of something, as a plan or deal:
That is exactly what has been going on when folks talk about, and raise money for, talking about veterans committing suicide. They search for answers and hope about how to heal PTSD and find rumors. Are veterans committing suicide? Yes. What good does it do to talk about a number when it is only partly true? No good at all. The number "22" is nothing more than an alternative fact, but they don't mention the rest of the news they don't want you to hear. There are simple facts they don't want you to pay attention to so that you open your wallet and feel as if you just did something to help change the outcome. You haven't done anyone any good by supporting something that does not exist. How can repeating a number, that is only partially true, help anyone? It can't but that doesn't stop anyone from using it unless they have integrity enough to do so much more than talk about what they think is true. That maybe the worst example of all. If they do not know what the real facts are, it pretty much shows they do not care enough to find the truth. If they have not invested the time in learning that, then it is obvious they haven't take any time to learn what to do to actually change the outcome. So here are some basic, actual facts to counter their alternative "facts" they want you to be aware of. The CDC suicide research has,
And that has not changed. That means for the 42,773 suicides per year, veterans were taking their own lives 2 to 1 civilian rate. Do the math. Far from 22 a day isn't it? Top that off with back in 2007 most of the folks talking about raising awareness were still sleeping on the subject. Not that is anything new considering that the other piece of fact they totally overlook is that the majority of the veterans committing suicide are over the age of 50 and that very well could be due to the other fact they are also the largest group of veterans in the country. It is even worse for younger veterans when compared to their peer rate. Often the reports have them committing suicide triple their civilian peer rate. For female veterans it is higher and young female veterans, even higher than that. The fact is, this whole business of raising awareness is exactly that, a business. If you are planning on contacting this site about what you're doing, take this as a warning because you will be blasted publicly. Too many veterans and families are searching for hope but you think you deserve their money for offering this deadly gimmick? WTF is wrong with you?
While I do not question their motives or their intentions, they might as well replace the American flag they wave with a white one to surrender more lives to suicide. Raising awareness has failed. When well meaning folks like these quote the number of "22 a day" it means they are unaware of the truth behind the numbers. A decade of talking about the problem has actually produced worse results than when no one was doing public displays. The VA report had the number of "20 a day" in their report back in 1999 when we had over 5 million more veterans in the country. If that does not prove these stunts do not work, then please drop to ground and do some push-ups to make yourself feel better about the results we allowed to happen.
Waving flags to raise awareness KSWO News By Chelsea Floyd Sunday, January 1st 2017
LAWTON, OK (KSWO)- If you were passing through Duncan on January 1st you may have seen people waving American flags on the side of highway 81.
Proposition USA, a focus group targeted to helping veterans, asked people to wave the flag to bring awareness to issues that face the men and women who have served our country. Veteran Cori Gilbert says she's been raising awareness for veterans for years and was glad to take part in waving the flag for the group.
"This flag is the single most important symbol for our government, for our troops,” said Gilbert. They wave this flag when they go into battle and come out of battle. This is what they stand for and this is what I stand for."
Since the organization's start in 2007 volunteers like Gilbert and Vietnam veteran, David Cook will continue their support for many reasons.
"Twenty-two veterans a day commit suicide, 200,000 veterans are homeless at any given moment, three hundred and seven thousand veterans have died from the lack of care,” said Cook. “We are trying to bring awareness to it."
Cooks son spent a year in Afghanistan and now suffers from PTSD. read more here
I have a very cynical attitude to all this raising "awareness" because making anyone aware of a problem has managed to produce more suicides. In other words, when it comes to reducing suicides, no one thought about making the veterans aware of why they should live instead of taking their own lives.
A good example of raising awareness is the mega charity Wounded Warrior Project. Yep, those guys. Their stated mission was to "raise awareness" but they forgot to mention that they were interested in making folks aware they wanted them to be aware of WWP. Not much else. It worked. What followed their success was a growing emergence of groups raising awareness of suffering and collecting money to do it. Would have been terrific had they actually provided awareness of what works, which they had nothing to do with considering it all started decades ago. Would have been great if anyone was aware of that. For years they have been putting on commercials, asking for money, holding some type of fundraising event and then taking a large portion of that money and donating it to colleges along with other charities. If anyone is angry about that, suggest you think about the commercials because they never once said what they were going to do with your money. One more suggestion is that you also check their website from time to time considering it is all on it topped off with press releases that no one manages to read. They are reorganizing and they are cutting staff according to a report from News4Jax.
Sources said Jeremy Chwat, the chief strategy officer, was let go this week. His biography says he was a founding member of the charity; the non-profit claims there were 27 original founders, although John Melia says he and his family founded the organization in 2004. According to the organization's most recent tax filings, Chwat's compensation was higher than $300,000 annually in salary and benefits. His departure means four out of five chief officers are now gone in the wake of the charity's spending scandal.
But while the report says it is the largest, it isn't. It isn't new either. None of this is new but apparently there has been a resurrection of the snake oil salesman. All they have to do is talk about the problem without ever offering anything that would change the outcome.
So as the number of veterans committing suicide remains higher than the civilian population, one more thing that everyone should be made aware of is that civilians are not prepared to die for the sake of someone else as a career. (Ok, I lied. Actually two things to be aware of.) They were also trained in "prevention" that only managed to feed the stigma while civilians were told it was to save their lives. So how is it that their numbers are higher than the civilian rate of suicides? Too few were made aware of SNAKE OIL salesmen not saying a damn thing that made a difference for veterans.
The headlines read "22 veterans commit suicide a day" along with the headlines of military suicides at an all time high. As bad as this is there are about 35,000 suicides a year in the US. (Never mind Hyundai is sold in other countries as well.) I don't think an apology will really undo the damage they did to their reputation. Thinking something like this would be funny involved a lot of people thinking the same way.
Hyundai’s shocking ad: You can’t kill yourself in our car
The car maker apologizes for a horribly tasteless ad -- but no one wants to take responsibility for it
Salon.com
BY MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS
APR 26, 2013
The good news is that Ford is no longer the front-runner for the most tasteless, boneheaded ad campaign of the year. Sorry, America! South Korea’s largest automaker, Hyundai, and its advertising agency Innocean Worldwide Europe, has utterly stolen your glory.
In the spot, hilariously titled “Pipe Job,” a grim, middle-aged man is seen in his garage, methodically taping and running a pipe into his car. He then sits inside stoically, breathing deeply, his face a mask of weary woe. Cut to nightfall, and the man emerging from the garage very much alive. The tag line? “The new iX35 has 100 percent water emissions.” Apparently someone thinks Hyundai’s target demographic is the depressed, unsuccessfully suicidal car-buyer market. Way to own it!
After the spot came to light on AdLand recently — and a few people gently pointed out that it was the worst idea in the universe — the car company issued its inevitable apology. The first statement was a classic soft-pedal, a message from the company’s North American branch that “We understand that some people may have found the iX35 video offensive. We are very sorry if we have offended anyone.” Some. If. Whatever.
A later statement, however, was more strongly worded. “Hyundai Motor deeply and sincerely apologizes for the offensive viral ad,” it reads. “The ad was created by an affiliate advertising agency, Innocean Europe, without Hyundai’s request or approval.” But as Forbes points out, Innocean is “an in-house ad agency,” a status abundantly clear on its website.
read more here
Aside from the link we can connect this to military service head trauma, this shows what Junior Seau's family went through afterwards.
Junior Seau suffered from CTE brain disease, study shows
PUBLISHED Thursday, Jan 10, 2013
Associated Press
Junior Seau, one of the NFL's best and fiercest players for nearly two decades, had a degenerative brain disease when he committed suicide last May, the National Institutes of Health told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Results of an NIH study of Seau's brain revealed abnormalities consistent with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
"The brain was independently evaluated by multiple experts, in a blind fashion," said Dr. Russell Lonser, who oversaw the study. "We had the opportunity to get multiple experts involved in a way they wouldn't be able to directly identify his tissue even if they knew he was one of the individuals studied."
The NIH, based in Bethesda, Md., conducted a study of three unidentified brains, one of which was Seau's. It said the findings on Seau were similar to autopsies of people "with exposure to repetitive head injuries."
"I was not surprised after learning a little about CTE that he had it," Seau's 23-year-old son Tyler said. "He did play so many years at that level. I was more just kind of angry I didn't do something more and have the awareness to help him more, and now it is too late.
"I don't think any of us were aware of the side effects that could be going on with head trauma until he passed away. We didn't know his behavior was from head trauma." read more here
Reducing Suicide Among Veterans Requires Shared Vigilance
Published Sunday, September 4, 2011 2:15 am
by Dennis Maley
Today marks the start of National Suicide Prevention Week. For anyone who has ever had to confront the complex emotional web of sorrow that accompanies losing a loved one by that person's own hand, I need not speak of the pain and difficulty involved. Increasingly, a large portion of Americans lost to this unfortunate act are coming from one place – the ranks of those who have served in our nation's military.
For the past two years, more U.S. soldiers have been lost to suicide than to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even on a superficial level, this is incomprehensible. Machine gun fire, improvised explosive devices, mortar rockets, surface to air missiles, grenades, etc., yet statistically, the most likely way one of our soldiers will meet their end is by taking their own life, giving up their very existence rather than endure the torturous reality that is their every waking hour and goes on to haunt their sporadic sleep.
This epidemic has finally been acknowledged, however slowly. Studies have not been able to clearly determine precisely what factors lead to increased likelihood . Numbers have not proven whether more deployments heighten risk or diminish it. But they do shed light on the stark volume in a way that calls attention to the entire warfare culture and indicts it on still another level.
20 percent of U.S. suicides are said to be committed by veterans, though they make up just over 8 percent of the population. Over the past five years of intense military deployment in multiple theaters, the Pentagon says that hospitalization of soldiers for suicidal thoughts has skyrocketed 7,000 percent. This is at least somewhat owed to an improving atmosphere, in which it is more accepted to express such problems, and the onus to direct soldiers toward treatment has thankfully grown. read more here
Fireman suspended for posing topless on charity calendar commits suicide
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 10:51 PM on 27th June 2011
A fire-fighter who was disciplined for posing shirtless on a charity calendar has committed suicide, it was announced today.
Tragic: Philadelphia firefighter John Slivinski, at right, is photographed by Katherine Kostreva at Logan Circle. Colleagues are baffled after his suicide on Saturday
John Slivinski was found dead at his Lawndale, Philadelphia home on Saturday, with Police and colleagues saying the cause was suicide.
It is not known why he took his own life.
In April the 31-year-old former Marine was suspended from the city's prestigious 'Rescue One' unit after posing topless for a national fund-raising calendar.
UPDATED: Township Mourns Loss of Veteran Officer
Officials said Officer Richard Lizzio was found in his patrol car Friday morning, following a self-inflicted gun shot wound.
By Jennifer Mohan
April 15, 2011
Flags around the township are flying at half-mast in honor of an Upper Southampton police officer found dead early Friday morning.
Just after 8:30 a.m., Officer Richard Lizzio, a 24-year veteran of the Upper Southampton police force was found in his patrol car, which was parked at the Jesus Focus Ministry.
Upper Southampton Chief of Police Ron MacPherson said Ofc. Lizzio was a firearms instructor for the department as well as an officer in charge, a position that often required him to substitute for an off-duty sergeant.
“He was a valuable member of our team,” said MacPherson. “He will be sorely missed.”
Lizzio was on duty at the time of the incident, but was not answering a call at the church.
MacPherson said Ivyland Borough Police Chief Nicholas Rosato was out in the street directing traffic around the area of the incident when he suffered a heart attack
Colorado's Suicide Numbers Highest In 20 Years Economy Could Be A Factor Honora Swanson hswanson@kjct8.com
COLORADO -- In a report out Wednesday, Colorado's suicide rate is the highest in 20 years.
In 2009, 940 Coloradans died by suicide according to suicide prevention officials with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The office of suicide prevention says these numbers can sometimes reflect the times.
"We know historically when the unemployment rate goes up, suicide rate also goes up. So that may be one of the issues," Jarrod Hindman with the Department of Public Health and Environment said. "The rest of the recession can also be included in that. Things like foreclosures, all of those pressures that come with the economic recession are factors." read more here Colorado Suicide Numbers Highest In 20 Years
Break the silence on suicide, and you could help save a life
Published: Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 1:00 a.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 1:58 p.m.
Suicide is the ignored epidemic of our time. Even in this era of constant communication and extensive social networking, the pervasiveness of suicide hides behind a void of discussion on its cause and effect. There remains a stigma associated with what is one of our most preventable fatalities.
To some degree, the absence of discussion allows suicide to proceed unchecked. Worse, the dearth of public dialogue has created a lack of information on how to recognize its attendant risks and mitigate its prevalence
Yet, it should not be so.
In 2008 2,723 Floridians died by suicide -- more than HIV-related deaths (1,746) and more than twice the number of homicides (1,211). The rate among elderly people is unacceptably high and the rate among military personnel and veterans higher yet. The devastation of suicide impacts families throughout our state, with each life lost visiting an unimaginable measure of pain and suffering on the loved ones left behind.
Suicide is a complex social phenomenon, with more than 90 percent of suicides associated with mental illnesses and/or substance use. read more here Break the silence on suicide
Man walking across country hopes to raise awareness for military personnel WBIR.com Updated: 9/6/2010 A marine veteran has made his way to East Tennessee this week to call attention to the high suicide rate among those in the military.
Ron Zaleski is walking barefoot across America to raise awareness about the suicides and other mental health problems among current and returning service members.
Zaleski starting walking in Concord, Massachusetts on June 1, 2010 and is hoping to make it to California by next May. Zaleski hopes his walk will encourage the military to provide mental health counseling for all soldiers in boot camp and when they leave the service as well as make support groups available to every former member and their family.
"We have to give them all the help that we can to humanly help them, because they're America, they're our future. If we don't help them what are we doing to our future?" explained Zaleski. go here for more Man walking across country
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.
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.
The story of how Gary Allan began to heal after his wife committed suicide proves that when people care enough to listen, other people heal. Does the pain go away? No but the memories, good and bad, don't go away either.
Gary Allan Brings on the 'Pain' Posted Mar 8th 2010 4:30PM by Donna Hughes "'Cause I love the long shots, and the left out lost causes, hanging out in the back of the pack with the dark horses, I ride the wrong road just as fast as I can, God knows there's no one else to blame, sometimes I think I get off on the pain."
Those are the relatively autobiographical lyrics from the title track of Gary Allan's new album, 'Get Off on the Pain,' out this Tuesday (March 9). Gary, who relocated from California to Nashville several years ago, says the song describes his life, both on a personal and professional level.
When The Boot sat down with Gary to talk about his new album, he appeared happy, relaxed and most importantly, at peace. In 2004, Gary's wife Angela committed suicide, and the devastated widower poured his heart, soul and pain into his 2005 release 'Tough All Over,' with songs such as 'Life Ain't Always Beautiful' and 'Puttin' Memories Away.'
On 2007's 'Living Hard,' a change occurred with a few songs of reflection, introspection and wistfulness, including 'Watching Airplanes' and 'Learning How to Bend.' He wrote several songs on that album that he said brought more truth to what he was singing, since he tends to write from personal experiences. Some of those personal experiences can be found on the new album, as well, in songs like 'No Regrets,' which is a tribute to his late wife. Gary has come out on the other side of tragedy and loss with a strength and sense of hope, due in large part to the therapy of making music.
During our interview, Gary also chatted about the healing process he went through, writing songs with one of his daughters, his all-or-nothing attitude towards love, recent troubles with a stalker and what he learned from touring with Brooks & Dunn.
Given all you've been through these past few years, is it therapeutic for you to put your thoughts down on paper?
Absolutely! Gosh, when my wife passed, that's how I got through it. Having your friends come over and kicking around every emotion, just turning it over from every angle really gives you a peace. For a while, I wondered what that was, but I recently met somebody who went through the same things that I did with family members and if anybody mentioned anything about it, they were a mess. And you wonder what that's gonna get you -- the therapy and all the things that you do -- but that's what it gets you is you're able to talk about that and live with it in a comfortable place, instead of just falling apart at the mention.
