Quotes & Statistics about Military Suicides

• The suicide rate in the U.S. Army now exceeds the rate across the United States as a whole (U.S. Army Report, 2010)
  
  
• Young male soldiers commit suicide at twice the national average.  (2008 Rand Report on The Invisible Wounds of War)
• Young female soldiers commit suicide at three times the national average.  (2008 Rand Report on The Invisible Wounds of War)
  
  
• "The military faces a suicide ‘crisis' said Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."  (USA Today, Jan. 29, 2010)
  
  
• "From the invasion of Afghanistan until last summer, the U.S. military had lost 761 soldiers in combat there.  But a higher number in the service-817-had taken their own lives in the same period." (Time Magazine, April 13, 2010)
  
  
• In 2009, "347 military personnel were killed in the two wars, while at least 381 warriors took their own lives." (The New York Times, July 22, 2010)
  
  
• "Airmen are killing themselves at the highest rate in 15 years." (Air Force Times, April 10, 2010)
  
  
• Army National Guard suicides increased 75 percent in 2009, according to Sen. Daniel Inouye.
  
  
• Marine Suicide rates have more than doubled since 2006.  (Marine Corps Suicide Prevention Program, March 10, 2010)
  
  
• Some 6,000 Veterans commit suicide every year (American Forces Press Service, April 23, 2010)
  
  
  
• National statistics show that veterans constitute about 20 percent of the 30,000 to 32,000 U.S. deaths each year from suicide.
• An average of 18 veterans commit suicide each day.
  
  

• Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the vice chief of staff of the Army, "said that the majority of Army suicides-60 percent-are committed during a soldier's first enlistment, typically four years, and that the most dangerous year is the first."  (New York Times, July 29, 2010)