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By SPCBrianPShaversMom Posted in War — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

The numbers are incorrect and I know this first hand. My son was called a "suicide" without autopsy, without psycological autopsy, and I fight TO THIS DAY to get his autopsy done!

Our Soldiers are insured for a half a million dollars. Are we so gullible as to think that someone would not KILL for that kind of money?

READ ON:

CBS did a news story on veteran suicides in December of 2007:

Since CBS News first aired our veteran suicide report on November 13, we have received several questions from viewers wanting more information. In order to provide as much information as possible and to fully answer all questions, this is a summary of the methodology and results of the data we presented.

When CBS News began looking into veteran suicide, we found that no federal organization or agency tracks the number of veteran suicides nationally. To our knowledge, no one is keeping count. We wanted to know how many veterans are committing suicide nationwide and how the rate of suicide for veterans compares to non-veterans.

Looking for Data

CBS News first approached the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in June and July asking for suicide data for those who have served in the military.

We were told the DoD only tracks suicides committed by military personnel who are on active duty. The VA said they had no suicide data on file at the time. The NCHS (which is the federal organization responsible for maintaining most of the nation's health statistics and is a center within the CDC) does not monitor the military status of those who have committed suicide. Finally, the CDC's Injury Center (also known as the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control) started a program in 2003 called the National Violent Death Reporting System which has collected some veteran suicide data from state death records but does not currently have nationwide counts. The CDC told CBS News that the information they have about veteran suicides "cannot be generalized to draw conclusions about the entire country."
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What is WRONG with this picture??? Today we hear of "HIGH SUICIDE RATES" yet, as per a reliable source, up until 2007, no one was keeping an accurate record of military suicide rates.

What is the rate of FEMALE Veteran Suicides???

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This is from Military.com:

Danger Room links to a CBS story on an allegedly disproportional number of suicides by veterans. Supporting an anecdotal piece on veterans of the current war, CBS pulls up statistics showing that veterans committed suicide at twice the rate of the average population.

In the US, male veterans outnumber female veterans 13:1. Since four times as many males as women commit suicide in the general population, you'd expect the rate among veterans to be close to the rate among males - 17.6/100,000 per year in 2002 - and indeed it is, if the CBS raw numbers are correct.

CBS also makes an issue of the fact that suicide rates among younger veterans exceed that of the general population by an even bigger margin - but again, that's what you'd expect, because in that age group, the male-to-female imbalance in suicide rates is greatest, almost six to one.

Suicide is tragedy. What it does not seem to be, among veterans, is an epidemic.

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WHY is there no connection between the Centers for Disease Control and the individual Coroner's Offices in every state?

If I can sit here on this computer and talk to someone in England, Cambodia, or Vietnam, WHY can't the CDC and the individual states communicate the numbers of Veteran Suicides?

According to the CDC:

Suicide attempts often are impulsive, yet little is known about the characteristics of impulsive suicide. We examined impulsive suicide attempts within a population-based (NOT MILITARY), case-control study of nearly lethal suicide attempts among people 13-34 years of age.

Attempts were considered impulsive if the respondent reported spending less than 5 minutes between the decision to attempt suicide and the actual attempt. Among the 153 case-subjects, 24% attempted impulsively.

Impulsive attempts were more likely among those who had been in a physical fight and less likely among those who were depressed.

Relative to control subjects, male sex, fighting, and hopelessness distinguished impulsive cases but depression did not.

Our findings suggest that inadequate control of aggressive impulses might be a greater indicator of risk for impulsive suicide attempts than depression. (Let's just insert here that our Veterans are COMBAT TRAINED, on the ready, alert, highly capable killing machines, drilled, prepared, and experienced in the horrors of war.)

Researchers have noted an increase in impulsive behavior immediately prior to suicide attempts (Hall,Platt,&Hall,1999), as well as a positive association between measures of impulsivity and suicidal behavior.

Let's apply the "IMPULSE" suicide theory to my son's case:

My son, SPC Brian Patrick Shaver, was a Veteran of OIF, thrice decorated with the Purple Heart. He came home, allegedly married, bought a brand new Jeep, started a business with a friend, took a job that gave him a two dollar an hour raise on the very day he allegedly "hanged" himself.

Brian had come home from work, worked in the yard, cut the grass, then allegedly took a bottle full of pain pills, and drank "a lot" of beer. He then alledgedly hanged himself in a five foot tall shed door where his dead body was visible to a six year old child.

The 9-1-1 call went in at 7:32pm. Brian was pronounced a suicide at 8:05 pm. The Coroner and the Deputies on the scene determined that Brian, with no prior suicide attempts, killed himself. He was buried without Autopsy.

Would this be called an "impulsive" suicide?

Let's define what the CDC claims...

In 1999 suicide was the third most common cause of death among adolescents and young adults between the ages of 15 and 34 years. Suicide attempts often are impulsive, calling into question the utility of existing suicide prevention strategies which often rely on the identification and referral of individuals at risk (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 1992; Potter, Powell, & Kachur, 1995).

We examined the following characteristics of the suicide attempts: time of day the attempt was made, perceived likelihood of discovery, type of method, consideration of other methods, expectation of death, and whether this was the first suicide attempt made by the subject. We also examined differences in the medical treatment required, the physician's perceptions regarding the severity of injuries or toxicity associated with the attempt, and the likelihood of recovery. (THIS would require physical and psycological autopsy which my son was NEVER afforded. The psychological autopsy (PA) is a method for reconstructing the diagnoses, behaviors, and life circumstances of a suicide victim in the days and weeks before death, through interviews with knowledgeable informants and review of records)

We sought to test four hypotheses concerning the characteristics of individuals who make impulsive and non impulsive suicide attempts. First, as indicated by previous research, we anticipated that poor impulse control might serve as a common link across multiple impulsive and health risk behaviors.

PTSD requires

3. Arousal

Irritability or outbursts of anger
Sleeping difficulties
Difficulty concentrating
Exaggerated response to things that startle you
Excess awareness (hypervigilance)
Hypervigilance is an "enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect threats."

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Ok, if someone is hypervigilant, why is it, when we picture a suicide victim in our minds, we see some sad sack with slumping shoulders? These SOLDIERS were not like that. They are on ALERT.

Self preservation is part of an animal's instinct that demands that the organism survives. Pain and fear are parts of this mechanism. Pain causes discomfort so that the organism is inclined to stop the pain. Fear causes the organism to seek safety and may cause a release of adrenaline which has the effect of increased strength and heightened senses such as hearing, smell, and sight.

The prospect of death causes unease or fear for most humans, distinct from the immediate awareness of a threat.

Is it not a true statement that mankinds number ONE instinct is survival???

For a clear view of "non-impulsive suicide" which is prevalent in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, please watch "Night Mother" with Sissy Spacek.

If WE THE PEOPLE intend to help our Veterans, we need to study and understand the facts. We need to REQUIRE AUTOPSY, we need to REQUIRE Educated Professionals in the Field, we need to REQUIRE that our Government put in place laws and guidelines to help prevent the loss of those who have bled for us.

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