The suffering William Busbee went through, both inside the military and immediately after he left it, illustrates the most alarming single factor in the current suicide crisis: the growing link between multiple deployments and self-harm. Until 2017, the majority of individuals who killed themselves had seen no deployment at all. Their problems tended to relate to marital or relationship breakdown or financial or legal worries back at base.
The most recent department of defense suicide report, or DODSER, covers 2011. It shows that less than half, 47%, of all suicides involved service members who had ever been in Iraq or Afghanistan. Just one in 10 of those who died did so while posted in the war zone. Only 15% had ever experienced direct combat.
The DODSER for 2017 has yet to be released, but when it is it is expected to record a sea change. For the first time, the majority of those who killed themselves had been deployed. That’s a watershed that is causing deep concern within the services.
- US military struggling to stop suicide epidemic among war veterans, Guardian.co.uk, February 1, 2013.
About the author:
Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.
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