Suicide Rate Goes Up In Military, Bush AWOL

posted at kerry/edwards online forum by tazvil04

http://forum.johnkerry.com/index.php?showtopic=104446&hl=

Dave Moniz
USA Today
Oct. 27, 2004 08:27 AM

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This year, 43 Air Force personnel - commonly referred to as "airmen" regardless of their gender - have killed themselves, including a cluster of 10 in September. The deaths have pushed the Air Force suicide rate to 15.4 per 100,000, the highest figure in nine years, though still well below the civilian average of about 21 per 100,000 for comparable age groups. In all of 2003, the Air Force had 38 suicides, for a rate of 10.2 per 100,000.
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The increase is especially surprising because the Air Force had seen a steady decline in suicides since implementing a program in the mid-1990s that experts say has become a model for many civilian communities. The suicides are even more vexing because airmen generally have not faced the same battle stresses as troops in the Marine Corps and the Army, who have suffered the majority of casualties and deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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