Fairness - The Commentary

According to just released Defense Department data , suicides among active-duty service members increased by more than 40% between 2015 and 2020. The numbers jumped by 15% in 2020 alone.   A 2021 study by the Cost of War Project concluded that since 9/11, four times as many service members and veterans have died by suicide as have perished in combat. In 2011, reports said, e ighteen U.S. veterans, on average, died of suicide every day, while the latest Veterans Administration report with figures from 2020 still puts the number of veterans taking their lives as seventeen a day after a high of 22. Other observers warn that these are undercounts . One report just released argues that the number is more like 44 a day.   There is still debate about how many Vietnam veterans have committed suicide on top of the more than 58,000 who died in that war. The number by 1987 might have been as low as the 1987 Centers for Disease Control estimate of 9,000 or as high as 200,000.   One retired VA doc