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Military Suicides Up 25% Q4 2020

DoD: “From a suicide perspective, we are on a path to be as bad as last year.”

Article Link (Stephen Losey)
 
Military News reports on recently released DoD figures that the number of suicide deaths in all components of the military will have grown from 503 in 2019 to 571 in 2020, which would be a 13.5% increase.
 
While current numbers are not available from the VA, a similar increase would be 22 veteran suicides a day, or an annual total of over 8,000 tragedies. Irrespective of when the count begins, more veterans are committing suicide each year than died in Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts since 9/11. US deaths in Iraq: 4,487
US deaths in Afghanistan: 2,316
 
The Costs of War Project, a joint effort between Brown’s Watson Institute and Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, was launched in 2011 with the goal of comprehensively documenting the costs of the United States’ counterterrorism wars in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. See: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/
 
The Project estimates that it will cost U.S. taxpayers over $1Trillion over the coming decades to care for veterans wounded in the wars. In a Cost Paper soon to be released by the TreatNOW Coalition, the costs are shown to be significantly higher.
 
The information provided by TreatNOW.org does not constitute a medical recommendation. It is intended for informational purposes only, and no claims, either real or implied, are being made.