On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:47:37 -0600, "Paul"
wrote:


"BE-VA" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:56:48 -0800 (PST), YTR
wrote:

More American US veterans are dying by their own hand back home in one
year, than have died in battle in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.


That's a lie.


No actually its true.... but ONLY if you include the suicides of ALL
veterans in any given year... NOT just the ones that have served in Iraq /
Afghanistan.
But CBS spins the issue to make it "Look like" returning Vets are killing
themselves at a high rate.

Veterans as a group have a SLIGHTLY higher rate if suicide than the general
public, if you check more than one years figures....

In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256
suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That's 120 each and
every week, in just one year. Dr. Steve Rathbun is the acting head of the
Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the University of Georgia. CBS
News asked him to run a detailed analysis of the raw numbers that we
obtained from state authorities for 2004 and 2005. It found that veterans
were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets.
(Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000,
compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.)


One could apply the same formula to suicides among homosexuals,
dentist or law enforcement officers and see a rate that far exceeds
that of veterans. Numbers lie. Some people use numbers to lie.