According to new data released by the Department of Veterans Affairs the number of veteran suicides is 20 a day – not the much-quoted 22 a day. It is good to have correct data and the new study includes more than 50 million veterans’ records from 1979 to 2014, including every state.
According to the Watson Institute at Brown University, the number of American soldiers killed in the Iraq/Afghanistan wars is just over 6300
So in 15 years the number of soldiers killed in conflict is about not even 2 a day. But when they come home they commit suicide at a rate of 20 a day. That’s 109,500 deaths once they return home.
There is obviously something very wrong with American veterans aid. We are not helping these young soldiers deal with what they experienced over there and how hard it is to reintegrate into society after coming back from the war.
The current treatments for depression and PTSD are not effective – that is obvious by the rate of veteran suicides. We have to look for other answers to stem this tide of American Veterans taking their own lives. When we lose 10x as many young soldiers once they come home as we do on the battlefield, something is terribly wrong.
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