Furthermore, the Army’s own report on the failure of the sexual harassment and response program at Fort Hood Texas, where Spc. The services were also recommended to use data-driven decision-making in their prevention efforts, which has also not occurred. The problem is systemic: in 2015, the DoD was recommended by GAO to identify risks and protective factors in order to help prevent sexual assault, something which it has still not done. More than half of women and 35% of men in the military are affected by military sexual trauma, and 71% of female veterans seek PTSD treatment due to military sexual trauma suffered while in the services. From 2017 to 2019, reports of sexual assaults in the military surged by 50%. The military’s subpar treatment and respect of military sexual assault victims, both male and female, also serves as an example of its leaders failing to create a safe environment for all service members. It’s difficult to believe the culture around mental health treatment in the military’s higher echelons is changing when these arguments are a horrifying callback to those made over 100 years ago in early 20th century militaries, blaming Shellshock and other mental issues on a lack of soldier discipline or bravery. The DoD in its 2020 (and 2019) official reports on suicide have even put blame on service members themselves, noting relationship factors, excessive debt, administrative and legal difficulties, or lack of coping skills as risks other more likely causes such as military sexual trauma, which appears only once in the entire document, or stress imposed by service members’ leaders, is discounted. They’ve been making that same argument since at least 2013, when the blame was put on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite the suicide rate among those who had never deployed to war zones nearly tripling during that time period. Recently, the argument from DoD officials has been that the suicide rate is partly created by the armed forces being overstretched by threats such as China even though our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been drawn down. For women, the suicide rate remained around 12 per 100,000 which is double (100%) the suicide rate of women in the national population. Demographically, the suicide rate among men increased from 28 per 100,000 to 32 per 100,000, a statistic higher than males in the national population. The overall active suicide rate from last year increased from 26 to about 29 per 100,000 personnel.
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The DoD’s 2020 annual suicide report, released last month, paints a picture that points to systemic issues. This photograph is one in a portfolio of twenty taken by eleven different Associated Press photographers throughout 2004 in Iraq. Marines have been fighting insurgents in several neighborhoods in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah in order to regain control of the city.
![suicide commando 2013 suicide commando 2013](http://alternation.eu/images/artists/201705140905057895704.jpg)
Marines pray over a fallen comrade at a first aid point after he died from wounds suffered in fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, on April 8, 2004. Notably, most troops who die by suicide have never deployed.
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In the same time period, an estimated 30,177 service members and veterans have died due to suicide, based on data from Brown University’s Costs of War project.
![suicide commando 2013 suicide commando 2013](https://www.soundspheremag.com/wp-content/migration/images/stories/Implementsofhellcover2.jpg)
Since 9/11, an estimated 7,057 service members have died during military operations.