A recent VA study revealed that nearly one in five suicides
nationally is a veteran even though veterans only make up 10% of the population
but the reporting states only represented about 40% of the U.S. population ~
and did not include the two largest states California and Texas as well as
Illinois: Allen L Roland
Supposedly every day in the United States at least 22
veterans commit suicide
but this stark figure is obviously a low ball number because three of the
largest states did not make data available to the VA for this report,
according to Mori Basu of CNN.com.
Excerpt: " Luana Ritch, the veterans and military families coordinator
in Nevada, helped publish an extensive report on that state's veteran suicides.
Part of the problem, she says, is that there is no uniform reporting system
for deaths in America. It's usually up to a funeral director or a coroner
to enter veteran status and suicide on a death certificate. Veteran status
is a single question on the death report, and there is no verification of it
from the Defense Department or the VA. "Birth
and death certificates are only as good as the information that is
entered," Ritch says. "There is under reporting. How much, I don't
know."
If a veteran intentionally crashes a car or dies of a drug overdose and leaves no note, that death may not be counted as suicide.
An investigation by the Austin American-Statesman newspaper last
year revealed an alarmingly high percentage of veterans who died in this manner
in Texas, a state that did not send in data for the VA report.
"It's
very hard to capture that information," says Barbara van Dahlen,
a psychologist who founded Give an Hour, a
nonprofit group that pairs volunteer mental-health professionals with combat
veterans.
The VA
report itself acknowledged "significant limitations" of
the available data and identified flaws in its report. "The ability of
death certificates to fully capture female veterans was particularly low; only
67% of true female veterans were identified. Younger or unmarried veterans and
those with lower levels of education were also more likely to be missed on the
death certificate."
"There's
probably a tidal wave of suicides coming," says Brian
Kinsella, an Iraq war veteran who started Stop Soldier
Suicide, a nonprofit group that works to raise awareness of suicide.
Between October 2006 and June 2013, the Veterans Crisis Line received more
than 890,000 calls. That number does not include chats and texts.
VA
Secretary Eric Shinseki requested collaboration from all 50 states to improve
timeliness and accuracy of suicide reporting, key to improving suicide
prevention. At the time the VA released its last suicide report and at least
11 states had not made a decision on data collaboration.
There is
a solution as I have clearly demonstrated over the past three years with my
Heart centered Healing The Wounded heart transformation (Band of Brothers) workshops for combat veterans
with PTSD. In many of the Combat Veterans with PTSD I have
worked with ~ a light has literally gone out within them and most have
contemplated if not attempted suicide at one time or another. You can
imagine the satisfaction of watching that light come back on when their hearts
are jump started through gratefulness and heart centered counseling. See
article ~ http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/08/14/band-of-brothers-10-connection-and-self-healing/
I have long felt and
have now proved that PTSD is quite often Post Traumatic Heart Disorder for a common symptom
of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is the inability to give or receive love ~
which can obviously apply to non-veterans who have also suffered significant
loss or emotional childhood and/or adult psychic pain.
I have also clearly
demonstrated that only after the heart is touched, through gratefulness and accountability, can true self-healing occur
for only then does the client (veterans or otherwise) truly want to heal. Using
the premise that what is deepest within us is love (not anger) and utilizing an
action oriented approach to face and go through their heart felt fears ~ these
veterans, soon discover that beneath their
pain, anger and shame is not only love and joy but most importantly their true
authentic self.
In addition, a new
SFVA study strongly suggests that soldiers who experience killing experiences
are twice as likely to attempt suicide ~ which strongly supports the reality of soul
damage as a contributing factor for veteran’s suicide as well as the obvious
need for a proven heart centered approach toward veteran rehabilitation. See
my report ~ http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/04/25/rising-vets-suicides-heart-centered-approach-needed/
My point about combat veteran's ongoing battle with
suicide is dramatically made in David Finkel's recently published book Thank
You For Your Service. As Michiko Kukutani superbly writes in the New York Times ~
"The central story line in “Thank You for Your
Service” belongs to a soldier named Adam Schumann (whom we first met in
“The Good Soldiers”) leaving his third deployment in Iraq in “a mental health evacuation.”
He’d gone there, a gung-ho guy, thinking he had “a front seat to the greatest
movie I’ve ever seen in my life,” and remembered thinking once that getting
shot at in a firefight was “the sexiest feeling there is.”
Mr. Schumann became a great soldier ~ the “smart, decent,
honorable” one, the one everyone relied on, the one with the sharpest eyes, who
could find the hidden roadside bombs ~ but he left Iraq a broken man. Terrible,
bloody images play on an endless loop in his head: carrying his friend Emory,
who’s been shot in the head, draped across his back; his pal Doster, “being
shredded again and again by a roadside bomb on a mission Adam was supposed to
have been on, too.” Despite all the psychiatrists and therapists he’s talked
to, Mr. Schumann finds himself thinking about suicide more and more
often." See review ~ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/books/thank-you-for-your-service-by-david-finkel.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131001
The VA of course
refuses to acknowledge the cost effectiveness of a heart centered approach to
Veteran rehabilitation but they cannot hide the obvious possibility that
approximately 50 veterans, throughout the
U.S take their lives every day because they have no choice versus psychotropic
drugs, spirit numbing warehousing and the
well-known VA inability to introduce a proven source
related heart centered approach to veteran
rehabilitation versus relying on a outdated symptom related and drug centered clinical
approach.
Of course, the sad
realization, that many of these vets deeply feel, is that they have been
fighting for principles and lies that extend from Vietnam to Iraq and
Afghanistan ~ but the principal liars have yet to be exposed and prosecuted.
Allen L Roland
Freelance Alternative
Press Online columnist and transformational counselor
Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and
private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com
Allen
L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and
lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a
monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
