As established last month, the 4th Saturday of each month is to take note of names I will never be able to list….those of soldiers who have taken their own lives. Sometimes, if these deaths occurred in the war zones, I may get the names on my DOD lists—but they are not usually listed as suicides, merely “non-combat incidents”. If they happen stateside, I never see the names at all, unless a newspaper or family member alerts me.

My sincerest sympathies to the families of the lost; whose names I do not know and will likely never see. I feel indescribably sad looking at this information each month. A service member attempts or succeeds at suicide about every three days. And another sad side-light to this topic is whether or not deaths called “suicide” actually are such; any number of those so ruled have since been questioned. Several have earmarks of murders, but it was far easier to label them suicide and ship the bodies home. In some cases, parents could not even have a private autopy done—ALL internal organs had been removed from the bodies, without their permission. (See the “Home of the Brave” link on blogroll to read more on this unhappy side of the business)

The following is the data released by the Department of Defense:

In October, among active-duty soldiers, there were 16 potential suicides, all of which are pending determination of the manner of death. For September, the Army reported seven potential suicides among active-duty soldiers. Since the release of that report, three have been confirmed as suicides, and four remain under investigation.

There were 133 reported active-duty Army suicides from January 2009 through October 2009. Of those, 90 have been confirmed, and 43 are pending determination of manner of death.

During October 2009, among reserve component soldiers who were not on active duty, there were eight potential suicides. Among that same group, from January 2009 through October 2009, there were 69 reported suicides. Of those, 41 were confirmed as suicides, and 28 remain under investigation to determine the manner of death.