Navy Admiral Mike Mullen (ret.), former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an audience in Aspen this weekend that military has “18 vets a day who are killing themselves in the United States” due to the incomprehensible stresses of military life, which he said are compounded by a public that is increasingly disconnected from the ongoing wars.
Military suicides rose dramatically after the start of the Iraq war, according to a recent study by the Army’s Public Health Command. That same study found that in 2008, 1 in 5 U.S. soldiers voluntarily submitted to a mental health evaluation, “implying a prevalent public health problem.” Since then, the military’s suicide rate has continued to climb, hitting a 10-year high in 2012, even though U.S. forces are almost entirely withdrawn from Iraq.
As bad as that sounds, it gets worse: Those figures only account for active duty soldiers, and not soldiers who have returned to private life. If Mullen is correct, then the problem of military suicides is even worse than previously known.
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