Sincere question for VN/WW2 vets on DU- were suicides as prevalent then?

[w8liftinglady]

working on my next editorial.

here's recent developments In iraq and Afghanistan regarding suicides in active duty and reserve troops
http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4756

[HereSince1628]

1. They were prevalent enough during VN to be a big topic for 'commander's call'

Friday afternoon 'educational' meetings and also a topic of the personnel management parts of NCO school.

I've seen comparisons of now and VN posted on the web in recent months, I would think a search engine would find them, individually if not together.

Just my opinion but the stop-loss nonsense and the broken promises about dates for deployments to end must be crushing to morale. During VN most everyone had a good awareness of how 'short' they were.

[pinto]

2. Interesting question. Look forward to see what feedback / research you get.

:thumbsup:

[panader0]

3. A good question

I'm not a vet, but my dad was in WWII and Korea, and I was raised on bases all over. I never heard of any of his friends in the service committing suicide. Things have changed somehow. I'll bet that the suicide rate is higher for the current wars than thw old ones.
Why would somebody unrec this sincere question?

[DrDan]

4. yes - as I recall

[Jackpine Radical]

5. It was certainly an issue in the VN era.

I don't know about absolute numbers in the military. I think there were quite a few post-separation suicides as well. These might not have been accurately counted. Back then, a lot of us served 2 years as draftees & were sent back into civilian life shortly after returning from VN, and nobody was especially watching what happened to people after their return to civilian life. These days, people are serving much longer terms & going back time after time, so the numbers would be very hard to compare.

[old mark]

6. K&R- from the VN era, I can tell you people are still being killed by that war.

Vets of the era have very high rates of death from alcoholism, drugs and suicide as well as all stress related diseases.

Link: http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/armed_force/us_soldiers_committing_suicide_vietnam_iraq.html

Link to CDC report from 1987:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000865.htm

NOTE; there are several RW sites that say none of this is true, that ther was NO INCREASE in suicide post Vietnam, nor any study of the effects of PTSD on Vietnam vets.

My experience with my peers tels me PTSD is certainly a factor.

mark

[w8liftinglady]

7. that's kind of been my observation... suicide comes in many ways

The Vietnam vets i ran with that had issues usually internalized through alcohol and drugs.several of my old boyfriends would disappear for days.. just to reappear after a bender.Had more than I care to remember die fromaccidents after drinking/drugging.
i hope that something positive comes out of all this.
For the vets,their families.