

U.S. military suicides last year far exceed combat deaths in Afghanistan - amcaskill
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/14/record-number-of-u-s-military-suicides-last-year-far-exceeding-american-combat-deaths-in-afghanistan/

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jdietrich
From the article:

 _The Pentagon says that although the military suicide rate has been rising,
it remains below that of the civilian population. It says the civilian suicide
rate for males aged 17-60 was 25 per 100,000 in 2010, the latest year for
which such statistics are available. That compares with the military’s rate in
2012 of 17.5 per 100,000._

The quote "Suicides in the U.S. military surged to a record 349 last year, far
exceeding American combat deaths in Afghanistan" sounds shocking, but it's
pure yellow journalism. The United States armed forces are vast, employing 1.4
million active duty personnel. By the end of 2012, there were only
approximately 68,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan.

This is a shameful piece of journalism, authored by someone who is either
innumerate or utterly cynical. There is no excuse for misrepresenting data in
this manner.

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csense
I happened to catch a glimpse of the NBC news on TV today, and this was
mentioned.

It seemed odd to me that they didn't include a comparison to the expected
number of deaths from suicide in a civilian population of this size and
demographic makeup.

I could easily see an article like this being generated by a small local
newspaper or some random blog, but you'd think one of the major TV networks
would have better quality control.

About a month ago, someone on HN actually questioned my assertion that the US
news media has a liberal bias...I wish I had the energy to dig through my
comments, find that person, and reply to their comment with a link to this
story :)

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merinid
I'm pretty positive this was also the case in 2012. Check it out, the official
link from data.gov does not resolve to an actual page. Ah, the government and
open data, always a tentative relationship:
[https://explore.data.gov/National-Security-and-Veterans-
Affa...](https://explore.data.gov/National-Security-and-Veterans-
Affairs/Updated-US-Army-Total-Force-Suicide-Data/h92d-5zj3)

