U.S. Military - the Suicide Factory

The talk of joining together military service with college as a way for a DREAMer to regularize his/her status is still with us. This added option will certainly help the DREAM Act pass. Yet at what price? Suicide is not the only consequence of serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. There is also Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (which the military does not like to treat) - and the numerous horrifying brain injuries that we are now seeing - in soldiers who a few years ago would have died. Our new technologies are saving their lives, but the quality of their existence is questionable...

Soldiering has never been good for your health. But at least the military is now willing to see why so many are committing suicide...

--

Study to Seek Clues to Soldier Suicides

By Steve Vogel

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, August 10, 2009

Doctors leading the largest study ever of suicide and mental health in the military are developing intensive soldier surveys that they hope will provide clues as to why suicide rates among Army personnel have grown dramatically in recent years.

The study, a collaboration between the National Institute of Mental Health and the Army, will seek data from every soldier recruited into the Army over the next three years as well as from about 90,000 soldiers already in the service, and the project could eventually involve half a million participants.

The soldiers will be asked on a volunteer basis for personal information that can be used to make psychological assessments. Family members might be contacted for further information. In some cases, saliva and blood samples will be collected for genetic and neurobiological studies.

The information will serve as an "ongoing natural laboratory," officials said, as researchers follow these soldiers for years, looking for common strands as to which individuals are more likely to commit suicide.

"We're looking at suicide as the culmination of a long chain of events," said Robert K. Heinssen, the NIMH study director.

In 2008, 143 soldiers committed suicide, the highest number in the three decades that the Army has kept records...link to complete WP article

chart is from the Huffington Post

DREAMers who plan to enlist: Beware

link to image

One of the options connected to the DREAM Act is for students to enlist in the U.S. military so that they can regularize their status.  This is a real threat to DREAMers, since the current suicide rate of military (active or discharged) is extremely high.

see this democracynow.org interview:

--

Why Are Record Numbers of US Soldiers Committing Suicide?

Democracy Now - April 29, 2009

The US military is grappling with a record number of soldier suicides. At least thirteen soldiers took their lives last month. That’s down from the twenty-four military suicides in January and eighteen in February, but still in line with the most number of suicides since record keeping began. As many as 143 soldiers reportedly took their own lives last year. We speak with Emma Prophet, an investigator at the Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s Office. link