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Suicides Up In Guards, Reserves

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By KIMBERLY HEFLING, The Associated Press

Published: February 13, 2008

WASHINGTON - More than half of all veterans who took their own lives after returning from Iraq or Afghanistan were members of the National Guard or Reserves, according to new government data that prompted activists on Tuesday to call for a closer examination of the problem.

A Department of Veterans Affairs analysis of ongoing research of deaths among veterans of both wars found that Guard or Reserve members accounted for 53 percent of the veteran suicides from 2001, when the war in Afghanistan began, through the end of 2005.

The research, conducted by the department's Office of Environmental Epidemiology, provides the first look at suicides among vets from those wars who left the military.

Joe Davis, public affairs director for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the Pentagon and VA must combine efforts to track suicides among those who have served in those countries in order to get a clearer picture of the problem.

The VA has said there does not appear to be an epidemic of suicide among returning veterans, and that suicide among the newer veterans is comparable to the same demographic group in the general population. According to the VA's research, 144 veterans committed suicide from the start of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, through the end of 2005. Of those, 35 veterans, or 24 percent, served in the Reserves and 41, or 29 percent, had served in the National Guard. Sixty-eight - or 47 percent - had been in the regular military.

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