Last year, I wrote a post about how suicides have been rising in the Army. Sadly that trend has not been reversed. In fact, it has gotten worse. While there were 164 suicide deaths of active-duty Army soldiers in 2011, that total grew to 182 in 2012 (a rise of about 11%). And it's not just the Army experiencing this problem. Suicides also rose in the other branches of the military also in 2012. The Marines had 48 suicides (a 50% jump), the Navy had 60 suicides (up 15%), and the Air Force had 59 suicides (up 16%).That makes a total of 349 suicides among active military in 2012 (a record number of suicides for active-duty military in a single year) -- and a sharp rise from the 301 suicides recorded in 2011 (about 16% more). Perhaps the craziest thing about these statistics is that only 295 Americans were killed in Afghanistan last year. That means there were 54 more military personnel killing themselves last year than were killed by enemy insurgents (over 18% more).
And this is just active-duty military personnel. It doesn't take into account the number of suicides committed by veterans who have left the service -- and doesn't count the number of failed suicide attempts. The Army officials assured us last year that they were taking substantive action to deal with the problem of military suicides. If they did, it is not working. The problem continues to rise, and unfortunately, has now reached a record-breaking level.
It is time for our politicians to take action -- and end this war (and think long and hard before starting any new wars). These suicides may not be counted as casualties of war, but that is exactly what they are. They are just another terrible cost of this nation waging unnecessary and seemingly endless war. This horror show must stop!
