More On Suicide
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), we lose more than one million people to suicide yearly, a global fatality rate of about 10.7 per 100,000. In the United States (U.S.), there are suicide attempts every 31 seconds, one death by suicide every 11 minutes. WHO records that it is the tenth leading cause of death in the country. One critical thing we have to consider here is that suicides are the most underreported for various reasons. Several experts believe that incidence that results from people taking their own lives may be 10-15% more than what official records.
On the other hand, The U.S. military shares an essential subset of the U.S. population with both shared and unique characteristics compared to the U.S. population. Rising suicide rates among Service members and Veterans over the past decade have raised public and professional concerns. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. military. The 2015 Department of Defense Event Report (DoDSER) in their 2015 annual report reported that the standardized suicide rate was 20.2 per 100,000 for the Active component. The Selected Reserves component said that the rates were 24.7 per 100,000 for the Reserve component and 27.1 per 100,000 for the National Guard.
The 437th Infantry Brigade has recently faced a sharp increase in soldiers taking their own life; we have had about ten related issues and have lost five great Soldiers to suicide alone in the past FY. Our findings point out a lack of effective preventive awareness in the brigade; so, the BWYA ministry has taken up the mantle to combat suicide in creating more effective awareness, proper understanding, and prevention of suicide in our brigade and its community. We aim to address the lack of adequate precautionary awareness of suicide in the 437 Brigade community. We provide a simplified way of getting to know suicide, its effect, how to get help for yourself and your buddy or family members, and how to get involved in the war against this common enemy. We also aim to provide hope to everyone in the 437 Brigade community and to consistently project the importance of their life, their presence, and how we are better with them alive. Our mission is to be the voice that is loudly saying to those having the thoughts of taking their own life that, “Do not Harm Yourself, We Are All Here To Help” (Acts 16:28 ). We strive to prevent this enemy of life via public awareness and education. We also provide available resources and programs to those touched by this kind of loss.
