Columbia University to study military suicide

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Coming to you hot off the web page presses via The Cute Husband Who Works There(tm), this just in:

NEW YORK (July 16, 2009) – Four of the nation’s leading experts in suicide research, including Dr. John Mann of Columbia University Medical Center, will carry out the largest study of suicide and mental health among military personnel ever undertaken, with $50 million in funding from the U.S. Army.  The announcement came today from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which signed a memorandum of agreement with the Army in October 2008 authorizing the NIMH to undertake the investigation with Army funding. Study investigators aim to move quickly to identify risk and protective factors for suicide among soldiers and provide a science base for effective and practical interventions to reduce suicide rates and address associated mental health problems.

Follow the link for the rest of the press release.

Since 2006, the average number of military suicides has skyrocketed. The last statistic I saw was 18 per month. This hidden casualty rate, part and parcel of the generally piss poor way veterans have been treated by the Bush administration, remains hidden in part because were these statistics common knowledge, the military would have difficulty meeting it’s enlistment quotas.

This iconic image is of Private First Class Joseph P. “Doc” Dwyer, a soldier from Long Island, NY. This obviously heroic, strong and compassionate man is one of far too many who are no longer with us. After his discharge, his life fell apart in a horror show of PTSD. He began “huffing” (inhaling solvents) and abusing alcohol and pills to ease the painful memories he brought home with him. Shortly after his friends tried to do an intervention in 2005, he shot up his apartment.

He overdosed on prescription medication and inhalants in North Carolina on June 28th, 2008. He was 31 years old. He is as much a casualty of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as anyone who died in the line of duty.

A Columbia University professor has also been noteworthy for her effort to draw attention to the plight women in the military currently face. In parallel with Col(ret) Ann Wright, Congresswoman Jane Harman and Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), Columbia journalism professor Helen Benedict has recently published “The Lonely Soldier”, a collection of non-fictional stories told by women stationed in Iraq about the additional pressure they face dealing with sexual harassment and rape by those who wear the same uniform and serve beside them. For a short time there was a play, The Lonely Soldier Monologues, that was based on the book. This effort brings home the equally hidden statistic that one in three women serving in the US military today is raped by someone in her command. As Rep. Harman put it, a woman is more likely to be raped by a fellow servicemember or contractor than she is to be shot by the enemy.

Military sexual trauma is only part of the equation. PTSD; repetitive deployments of people physically and/or mentally unfit for duty; a concentrated effort to deny veterans their benefits based on trumped-up “pre-existing conditions”; the resurgence of “Spin Codes” (secret and discriminatory codes embedded into a servicemember’s discharge paperwork which can interfere with their ability to get a job or claim benefits) – all of these play a role.

I greatly look forward to what this study will reveal; and I equally look forward to the tepid response by the wholly-owned mainstream media who would like this oh-so-bad-for-the-war-business issue – and it’s sizeable crop of “problem children” for whom the big lie no longer works to simply… go away.