This SMH article by David Wroe 13 May 2017 is a must read coverage of the fight against military suicide
……”Amid soaring concern about veteran suicide and rising dissatisfaction and criticism – some of it fair, some likely less so – of the Department of Veterans Affairs, thriving communities of veterans are self-organising online.”
“As the government and the military community searches for ways to reduce the rate of military suicides – which is up to double the rate of the community average in the case of younger veterans – there are calls for better co-ordination among veterans groups and also between them and the government.” …….
As a 23 years Army veteran, I’ve seen a lot of deaths in my career both witnessed first hand, overseas as well as leaning about the loss of fellow vets who take their own lives when they return from active service. Why isn’t the government budgeting in when ‘a service member deploys’, and they go through their decompression stage that they are reviewed not only after they return but every year there after? The government forgets about us all and it’s a national disgrace. I worked in a unit that carried out the pre-op training for forces deploying and as part of that pre-op sceduale there should be more emphasis on how they are before they deploy as well as how they are when they return. Yes there is a debrief, but what about the follow ups. I came back from my first deployment, where I said that I was a bit traumatised about an incident in my debrief, then they rung me up out of the blue a year after, asking me to come in. So rather giving me a debrief about my scoring they took it upon themselves to say, hey this guy might need to come in for a review. It should be mandated that if your effected or not, you need to be screen every year and yes that includes after you discharge back on to civy street, as your hightended state is much higher when you get out.