Military Suicides

There was recently an article published in the Taiwan Times, and in USAToday, which referenced the increased numbers of suicides in the military. Interestingly enough, several months back I was investigating suicides (on-line) and came across an article that actually listed troop suicides. As part of that same research, I learned that many suicides are NOT reported as such by the military. Now that this recent article came out written about increasing suicides in the military, I am wondering how high the numbers REALLY are. I'm not a big 'conspiracy theory' sort of writer, so I believe anything as having a single grain of truth until I learn otherwise. My curious mind has me once again wondering where the truth lies in the numbers of our military youth committing suicide. If the military acknowledges the numbers are up, I am left to reason that the numbers must be up even further than they admit to.
I read the articles, and write about it here on my Blessings in the Mire blog, not to bring in the spotlight to determine whether or not the government is honest. Rather, I write about it because as the mother of an adolescent who chose suicide, I am particularly driven to shine that spotlight onto the usually dark subject of suicide. The numbers have long been that suicide is the number THREE cause of death in adolescents ages 15-25 (Higher in Utah where suicide actually is the number 2 cause of death for adolescents). Add to these horrific numbers the folks who are "unsuccessful" in their attempts at premature death, and add again, the numbers of those who died while in the military, but of "non-related" to war deaths and the numbers are even more staggering.
As the mother of a son who chose suicide I am compelled to ask, and to eventually answer the questions that suicides leave behind. I do this not as the catalyst to healing my own severed heart, but to find a solution that may one day show results of youth choosing to live, to choose life and light and self-actualization as opposed to finite death. Because I know that suicide leaves a chasm of "before and after" that can rarely be bridged, I want to tell adolescents that suicide will kill more than themselves. Suicide leaves victims in its wake, family members and loved-ones who will never be the same. The pain of losing one to suicide is the deepest of all wounds to a mother's heart. It is the nasty taste left on friends' tongues after the initial "enshrinement" of the deceased. It is the thick energy that comes between survivors and their friends, friends who do not know how to react, what to say to those left behind.
This is not a military issue. The issue of suicide belongs to all of us. And it is time we began to look at it, and to offer solutions to a huge problem.