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Military study disputes link between combat and suicide

By LINDSEY TANNER — AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO — Combat appears to have little or no influence on suicide rates among U.S. troops and veterans, according to a military study that challenges the conventional thinking about war's effects on the psyche.

Depression and other types of mental illness, alcohol problems and being male — strong risk factors for suicide among civilians — were all linked to self-inflicted deaths among current and former members of the military.

But the researchers found deployment and combat did not raise the risk.

"The findings from this study are not consistent with the assumption that specific deployment-related characteristics, such as length of deployment, number of deployments, or combat experiences, are directly associated" with suicides, the authors wrote.

The results echo smaller studies focusing on a specific branch of the military, but this is the first to look at a sampling from the entire military population, said lead author Cynthia LeardMann, a researcher with the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/08/0 ... rylink=cpy

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Dan Martin wrote:It wouldn't surprise me if the reason so many vets top themselves had to do with the various vaccines they receive.

Batboy2/75 wrote:It's the life style.

BucketHead wrote:

Dan Martin wrote:It wouldn't surprise me if the reason so many vets top themselves had to do with the various vaccines they receive.

Batboy2/75 wrote:It's the life style.

I'm confused. The article says the military group was 0.02% and civilians were 0.018%. Is that even statistically different?

Batboy2/75 wrote:It's the life style.

People that have never been in the military don't understand that for most young single males, the military is a fraternity with guns. Everything is work very hard; Party very hard. The higher up the food chain up through the combat arms and up into Special opperations, the more intense it gets.


Young males
Losts of booze
Fraternity to Division I party atmosphere
Lots of crazy fucked up women hanging around
Extrememly stressfull and demanding job
Non stop action- can be very addicting
Shit loads of Money; if you consider a lot of single guys are coming back from Afghanistan with 7 months to 13 months of tax free pay sitting in their bank accounts.

You now have a perfect storm all sort of fucked up shit.

Dan Martin wrote:It wouldn't surprise me if the reason so many vets top themselves had to do with the various vaccines they receive.

Young males
Losts of booze
Fraternity to Division I party atmosphere
Lots of crazy fucked up women hanging around
Extrememly stressfull and demanding
Non stop action- can be very addicting
Shit loads of Money; if you consider a lot of single guys are coming back from the Gaymes with $7 to $13 tax free pay sitting in their bank accounts.

You now have a perfect storm all sort of fucked up shit.