U.S. military suicides last year far exceed combat deaths in Afghanistan

From the article:

The Pentagon says that although the military suicide rate has been rising, it remains below that of the civilian population. It says the civilian suicide rate for males aged 17-60 was 25 per 100,000 in 2010, the latest year for which such statistics are available. That compares with the military’s rate in 2012 of 17.5 per 100,000.

The quote "Suicides in the U.S. military surged to a record 349 last year, far exceeding American combat deaths in Afghanistan" sounds shocking, but it's pure yellow journalism. The United States armed forces are vast, employing 1.4 million active duty personnel. By the end of 2012, there were only approximately 68,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan.

This is a shameful piece of journalism, authored by someone who is either innumerate or utterly cynical. There is no excuse for misrepresenting data in this manner.

I happened to catch a glimpse of the NBC news on TV today, and this was mentioned.

It seemed odd to me that they didn't include a comparison to the expected number of deaths from suicide in a civilian population of this size and demographic makeup.

I could easily see an article like this being generated by a small local newspaper or some random blog, but you'd think one of the major TV networks would have better quality control.

About a month ago, someone on HN actually questioned my assertion that the US news media has a liberal bias...I wish I had the energy to dig through my comments, find that person, and reply to their comment with a link to this story :)

I'm pretty positive this was also the case in 2012. Check it out, the official link from data.gov does not resolve to an actual page. Ah, the government and open data, always a tentative relationship: https://explore.data.gov/National-Security-and-Veterans-Affa...