“One a day.” That was the cover line on TIME magazine’s July 23 issue marking the grim rise of suicides in the U.S. military. TIME’s Mark Thompson and Nancy Gibbs wrote:
More U.S. military personnel have died by suicide since the war in Afghanistan began than have died fighting there. The rate jumped 80% from 2004 to 2008, and while it leveled off in 2010 and 2011, it has soared 18% this year. Suicide has passed road accidents as the leading noncombat cause of death among U.S. troops. While it’s hard to come by historical data on military suicides–the Army has been keeping suicide statistics only since the early 1980s–there’s no denying that the current numbers constitute a crisis.