Comments on: Misleading with statistics

By: DougL

DougL — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 17:05:43 +0000

I think it would be interesting to see a longer trend of how military suicide rates have historically compared to civilian suicide rates beyond just 2006 and 2004 comparisons. Raw statistics are sort of interesting, but what would really be interesting would be some investigation into the reasons behind the statistics.

Intuitively, I would think that military suicide rates would be in general (after accounting for the effects of being deployed) lower than the suicide rate in the general population because I’d think that the things that traditionally qualify or disqualify people from military service would tend to select for more mentally stable people in military service.

By: Sean Aqui

Sean Aqui — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:08:53 +0000

Justin: Why do you argue with that?
http://www.2k.army.mil/downloads/FY05ArmyProfile.pdf

The Army is about 85% male.
46% of soldiers are 24 or younger.
68% are 29 or younger.

Those percentages are even higher if you count only the enlisted ranks.

By: Jimmy the Dhimmi

Jimmy the Dhimmi — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:25:02 +0000

The suicide rate has doubled from an all time low. Thats like saying a newborn baby's age doubled in matter of hours! Imagine if your age doubled in just a few hours! Also noteworthy, is that there was a 26% increase in active-duty suicides from 1997 to 1999, during the Clinton administration. There is a lot of standard variation and randomness to these statistics, but then again, that is probably Bush's fault as well.

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 13:07:17 +0000

Interesting analysis–I’m always glad to see when people bring context to statistics. You were doing well until your unsubstantiated statement that “Soldiers are mostly males in their early 20s.”

By: Evanel L.

Evanel L. — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:08:45 +0000

Comparing civilian & military suicides is like comparing apples & oranges. Civilians are largely under self-responsibility (and perhaps that of “government” or “society”), while soldiers are under the responsibility of the military. Most civilians can “choose” their living & working conditions, while soldiers cannot.

So if the military suicide rate has doubled, then there’s definitely a problem, and it should be addressed – instead of the author’s cavalier conclusion of “Let’s not overreact… the problem is small…”

Well, to the families of those who commit suicide, the problem is definitely NOT small.

Regardless of one’s position on the war, whether for or against, there are problems, and they can be addressed with shorter terms of duty, more counseling, more prevention-based screening, etc.