All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I'm the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism, and I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy, and all available for you at scotthorton.org.
You can sign up for the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scotthortonshow.
All right, you guys, introducing Ben Soot, and he just did this big piece for the Cost of War Project at Brown University, high suicide rates among United States service members and veterans of the post-911 wars.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, Ben?
I'm doing great.
Thank you so much for having me.
Happy to have you here.
Great work here, and pretty shocking numbers.
I'm almost certain, I could have double-checked this before I say it, but I'm pretty sure the last number I heard from Matthew Ho was that 9,000 American servicemen had committed suicide.
I guess that was the last numbers.
I'm not sure what his source for that was, but he is an expert on that issue, and now you're telling us that the number is far, far higher than that.
What is your total estimate here?
My total estimate is 30,177, and even that, I'm calling a very conservative estimate because I certainly wouldn't want to overstate the issue, but I do think that this is probably a low-ball estimate, yes.
Just the other day, I was talking with a young guy who repeated the statistic that, well, he said 25, but I think he was referring to the statistic that 22 suicides a day are taking place here.
I had read that, no, that wasn't right, and that was overstated, but now I wonder whether actually maybe that wasn't overstated, or maybe it's even worse than that.
Did you break it down on by day?
In terms of, no, although I can speak to that because that sort of the popular, sort of the push-up challenge or things like that that do bring awareness to that statistic, that number came in.
In earlier reports from the VA where they would include National Guard and Reserve Component suicides, that they now specifically only include those who are federally activated, and then they don't include active duty personnel.
So if you look at a more current annual report, it'll say something like 17 a day, but that's, the report is now talking about a smaller population of people, so that statistic probably still holds true.
In fact, it's probably worse when you consider the larger pool of people.
Yeah, there certainly have been, well, how many of the different services have deployed Army, Marines, and I know that there have been Airmen and Sailors on the ground too, but for the most part, we're talking about Army, Marines, and Guardsmen on the ground in Iraq, World War II, and Afghanistan.
Do you have numbers of, total numbers of guys who've rotated in and out over the years?
Oh, for the full number of people that have served, well, it's about, okay, what I do have in the report, just, sorry, right in front of me, is that of the 18.2 million veterans that live in the United States today, we do know that about 21% of that group served in post 9-11 conflicts, and then thinking about what the current defense manpower is right now, that would be, yes, many millions of people, and actually, these numbers that I'm talking about, this does include all of the veterans and service members in both combat and support roles that have died by suicide, so I am talking about, you know, anyone who served or is federally activated, you know, during this, these past 20 years.
Okay, Ben, so can you talk a little bit about all of the wide and varied reasons that you cite, very credible ones, to believe that these are low-ball numbers, that you can't really get good numbers?
Well, there would be multiple things going on.
One of the big issues is even just the ways that the Department of Defense and the VA have counted suicides.
They've only really consistently been keeping records of suicides in a consistent way, the VA beginning in 2005, and then the DOD, not until 2008, and even in their annual reports, the numbers don't go back much past 2011 in terms of having suicide rates per 100,000 across, you know, the same denominator.
And so, that itself is a bit of an issue.
In addition to that, you can imagine that it's difficult to call something a suicide in general, just because you're doing a bit of narrativizing, right?
So, before the DOD specifically created the category of suicide, they had what was self-inflicted death.
And that could be suicide, but that could also be an accident.
That could be an accidental drug overdose, a single car wreck, things like that, that would also be included.
So, that does make it a little more difficult.
I know anecdotally that motorcycle wrecks, you know, up near Killeen, at least, you know, back in Bush and Obama years, I haven't heard recently, but that this was a real problem, those guys are getting on a Yamaha crotch rocket and then just getting up to 200 miles an hour and slamming right into a bridge.
And then it happens over and over and over again.
And they go, well, it's an accident, but it ain't really an accident, you know?
Yeah.
And a lot of the veterans I spoke with, I mean, they would talk about doing that specifically just to get that feeling of adrenaline, that something about the high fast pace of life, especially if you're a combat service member or, you know, in a combat role or a combat veteran, that sort of refinding that adrenaline rush is something that they seek and that can lead to, you know, accidents like that.
But some could also be suicide.
Yeah, I'm sure you're right about that, that it is a mix of both.
But when you're just riding on I-35, which is hardly fit to drive 70 on, you know, you can only go so fast.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so thinking about the ways that it's difficult to come up with the actual number of suicides, particularly in the post 9-11 era, it is difficult, too, because the VA doesn't differentiate by era.
So there are certainly veterans who served in both the Gulf War and the War on Terror.
And so because the VA doesn't differentiate in that way, we're really just looking at age groups.
And so we do know a good idea of the number of veterans who have died since 2005 and really before that, too, but very specifically in the way that they count the denominator from 2005 on.
And so the estimate that I've had to work through, you know, I'm looking at post 9-11 era veterans, looking deep into the data in terms of age breakdowns.
And then in terms of active component service members, the DoD does have that.
And if you look at prior quarterly reports and prior annual reports, we can piece that together.
And then, in addition to that, the DoD has been very consistent with how they report federally activated National Guard and Reserve at least since 2011.
So the combination of those four numbers together is where we get to the little more than 30,000 veterans and service members.
And now that's with, to remind people, it's about 4,500, more than 4,500 in Iraq War II, and more than 2,400 in Afghanistan.
And then there have been others killed in other theaters as well there.
And so that's about 7,000 total, not including the contractors, but just American military who've died in the wars.
And then, so this is, I'm bad at math, more than three, is it four times as many?
It's about four times as many, yes.
Man, you know what?
I never could find this clip.
I looked for it again and I couldn't find it, but I think it's worth bringing up.
Where Ayman al-Zawahiri, probably 10 years ago, said, yeah, my guys commit these suicide attacks and kill themselves, but they do it in defense of the true faith and the homeland and whatever.
Your guys just commit suicide out of despair, because it's the way that your government uses them up and they know it.
And it's like, you know what?
It really sucks to have to swallow that bitter pill, especially as served up by the likes of him.
But isn't he right about that?
I guess I'd want to, that's such a gut-wrenching quote.
I know it sucks.
I hate him and I hate him for it, but I like true things despite how much I hate them, you know?
Yeah.
There would be so many different reasons.
And I think an important part of the conversation is to see, too, that it goes beyond combat service members.
Those in support roles have really high suicide rates, if not higher suicide rates.
And just thinking about if there was just one cause, if it was just combat exposure, that we could think about limiting the number of deployments or really increasing dwell time.
But it's more than that.
There's just so many reasons.
And I just wouldn't want to be reductive in the way that we talk about saying that it's just that they are dying because they're not being supported or their mission isn't what they signed up for.
Yeah.
Although then again, those are a couple of the important reasons that you list in the study, aren't they?
Oh, absolutely.
I think it's a yes and, it's both.
And we should make sure that we're talking about all of the different reasons, because if we're going to have solutions, we have to sort of address them individually.
And it's just a Herculean effort, and yet we need to do that.
Yeah.
And look, I'm not sitting here, this is anti-war radio, but I don't sit here shaming people for fighting in the wars.
Most of these people join up right out of high school, and everybody in the community says it's the right thing to do and all that, and they find out the hard way, essentially.
But I know of one young guy that came home from Iraq War II and had a real hard time with PTSD and sort of, I guess, the way you describe wide awake nightmares all the time, flashing back to all the horror show and everything all the time, until finally one day he admitted to himself that it was wrong.
And that it was kind of his fault that he had made a mistake.
He was a young man, but he had made a mistake in trusting the government and believing them that it would be the right thing to go and join their military and protect the country and this and that.
And the reason that he was having such a hard time with it was because of the dissonance, where most of him knew it was wrong, while the rest of him was saying, no, you're a hero and red, white and blue and all this stuff, like they say.
And when he finally just admitted that, yeah, I really shouldn't have done that, that was finally what was the relief and the load off his shoulders and helped him to get over the PTSD that, you know, was really afflicting him at the time and helped him kind of move on from there.
And I've heard variations of that tale from others as well.
So, you know, I'm not sitting here trying to, you know, it's it comes up often when, you know, when we talk about foreign policy, most we're talking about think tankers and generals and politicians and whatever.
In this case, we're talking about the GI.
So I just want to make sure that I'm clear, you know?
Yeah, absolutely.
And your story, I mean, it reminds me of one of the Marines I spoke with who he said, you know, even in his case, he said, I think that the reasons that got us there in the first place may have been valid.
Obviously, we, you know, talk about the intelligence on that.
But he said that we've overstayed our welcome.
And he himself deals with moral injury and PTSD.
And yet, he says at the same time, and I think this is just such an interesting piece that he would go back into the military in a heartbeat, but it's not because he believes in the mission, it's because he misses, like his guys, he misses being with those people.
And, you know, if the military is very good at getting you to be close with your unit, you have to trust them with your life, with your life.
And yeah, it's just, it's, it is, that dissonance is, is very real.
Yeah.
Hey y'all, Scott here.
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All right, so now listen, I mean, as far as compiling all the numbers and the amount of research that you did in this, it's, you know, probably the best study that's ever been done on it.
And then, but much better than that, you really go through and break down, I don't know, a dozen different major significant, or I'm being redundant there, major contributing causes and motivations for these young men and women to kill themselves after they come home from the war.
So can you please, we got the time here, I'd like to hear.
Oh, to go through them?
So sure.
So we can really break this down into two major categories.
There would be the sort of contributing factors that would be true of most any American wars.
So PTSD being a physiological response to trauma.
And that certainly plays a huge part, just it's a staggering amount of service members and then veterans get diagnosed with PTSD.
And in addition that you get this thing called moral injury, which is sort of a betrayal of your sense of right.
And it's sort of an emotional response to what's going on.
And so, you know, you imagine most people have this sort of narrative in their sort of life story, right?
That you're, that I'm a good person.
And so you can imagine in the act of killing, or witnessing atrocities, or situations like that, that maybe this, you know, killing someone betrays that sense of rights that you hold on to.
And so then you start questioning, am I still a good person after killing someone?
And that guilt and that shame sort of swells up.
And that's what we call moral injury.
And very much that that is also linked to suicidal ideation.
And then add to that, just sort of military life that has a high operational tempo, you're being isolated from friends and family, you are under constant stress, you know, just the fear and anxiety that comes with being under threat of danger.
All of those contribute, but those are probably true of all, you know, wars in general.
What seems to be unique, and what is that sort of that second category, is looking at the war on terror, what is different?
What might be why are the rates now higher than they've been since before World War Two?
And that reason seems to be the protracted length of the war that we're in our 20th year of the war.
And adding that to the, the tremendous medical advances that we've had, that keeps soldiers and service members in general, thankfully alive, and you know, they're able to survive wounds.
But in a lot of cases that that keeps them in the fight.
And so certainly at the height of the war, say the height of fighting in 2007, IEDs were just so common, they're still common, but they're especially common then, improvised explosive devices.
And that led to just a huge rise in traumatic brain injuries, so much so that became known as the signature injury of the war on terror.
And we're not talking about just, you know, getting one traumatic brain injury, and then you leave the military or something.
Some service members were getting 10, 20 traumatic brain injuries, and then still staying in the military.
And as much as, you know, it is a traumatic thing for someone to be medically discharged, because if you imagine having, you know, planning your career to last 20, 30 years, and all that goes along with that, and the station of being in the military, to just have it cut short, because an IED hit your vehicle, and now you have a traumatic brain injury, or you've developed post-traumatic stress, or a combination of both, or that and chronic pain, that all of that added up, you know, then sends you back into the civilian world, and you're dealing with the after effects of what those, you know, that three-tiered combo that we call polytrauma, that that's all very much linked to suicidal ideation, and adding to that these things that are then always true of war, you know, moral injury, and PTSD, and dealing with stress, just the difficulty of transitioning back to civilian life in general.
What about drinking?
I mean, I know I'm not much of a drinker myself, but I could see how getting blacked out drinking whiskey can help numb the pain for a little while, but then that's a vicious spiral itself, huh?
Yes.
Drinking, drug use, sort of, it's called like vicious behaviors, vice behaviors, like we were just talking about, riding a motorcycle really fast, those are all linked in ways to increases in suicidal ideation, and the time between when a suicide might happen, and even the thought to go with it, is a very short window, so you can imagine if you're not totally sober in a moment, and you've been drinking, or you're on drugs, that sort of ability to have a weapon available to you, or some means of of dying by suicide, that you would then, yeah, the time is very short, and they're not necessarily going to be calling the, very useful, but yeah, the suicide prevention hotline, or something in that time.
You know what, man, I wonder what are the numbers just about alcohol and suicide overall, you know?
Somebody that I looked up to very much when I was young, killed himself one Christmas, when if he hadn't been drinking, he would have lived that day, and ever since too, you know?
Yeah, just in terms of my report, the things that come through is just the, you know, higher levels of risk-taking, higher levels of binge drinking, that alcohol-related issues in that way just significantly contribute to the risk of suicide.
Yeah.
All right, now, you know, one thing that I noticed wasn't in here, I wondered if you had wondered about this, was about the antidepressant drugs that guys are given as well, which from time to time, at least, in the spoken fine print on the TV commercials, they even say, may cause suicidal or even homicidal thoughts, or cancer, or whatever, you know, when they go down the list there for your arthritis medicine, or your antidepressant.
I know some of these guys get some pretty powerful antidepressants, and I wonder whether you think that plays into, maybe some guys who would have had a hard time, now they have a hard time for a limited time, and the drug actually induces them to kill themselves somehow.
Right.
So, it's certainly related to that idea I mentioned of the medical advances that we've seen.
And so, in addition to medical advances that keep service members in the fight, we also have pharmaceuticals that are supposed to be helping them through things like chronic pain, or helping them with depression, and, you know, well, on the pain side, you have a possible opioid addiction because of the painkillers that they're taking.
And then, on the side of depression, there are these side effects trying to get those pharmaceutical mixtures right, you know, that can lead to these sorts of other issues.
And so, yes, that must absolutely play a part.
And I think one of the, I don't want to conjecture too much, but just to imagine that one of the larger issues confronting the VA is just the amount of bureaucracy that veterans have to go through in order to get the help they need.
And then, in addition to that, that not all mental health care workers are made equal, not all doctors are made equal.
And so, getting the very idiosyncratic help that they need, and to find the right combination of drugs to help them, if that's the way to go, or other treatments, you know, whether that's a companion animal, or just other ways of managing mental health, that's very difficult to get, not even to mention those who live in remote areas and don't have access to the VA.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's something that we've talked about on the show.
It's one of these ironies that because guys who would have died in any other war in all of history are able to be saved, and yet people live in absolute misery.
And so, it's not a knock against the life-saving technology or anything, but it's just, it creates this whole difficult circumstance where Walter Reed and like hospitals are essentially overflowing and discharging guys who really should still be in there, and this kind of thing.
People who are living in absolute misery, missing many of their most important parts, and this kind of thing.
And so, you know, I wonder if, in a way, do you need to like correct for that, that you just have so many more seriously wounded people coming home, and their percentage of the people who are committing suicide?
Oh, gosh.
You know, the, I would never err on the side of saying that, you know, I wouldn't want people to have survived through those experiences.
But I think, yeah, that is a matter of availability of medical care.
And thank God that we have the CHOICE Act that was started, you know, during the Obama administration, and doubled down on the Trump one, and that Biden is committed to, too, that that does increase the range of hospitals and mental health care workers then available to veterans to be able to use.
But obviously, that doesn't solve the problem.
And so then, you know, we're looking so much on treatment of this issue, and so much of it needs to be preventative in the first place.
And one of, you know, one of the great things we could do is to stop making new veterans.
If we could just stop being in this forever war, you know, coming into this 20th year, it's great that President Biden has said he's going to try to draw down troops in Afghanistan.
Although there's always sort of postbellum ethical issues to consider in that sort of situation.
But yeah, we just need to stop creating more of the problem.
Because obviously, it's something of an infrastructure issue of not having available resources.
Yeah.
Now, you know, here's something that I had thankfully overlooked until now.
Thanks a lot, pal.
You cite a poll in here that says from 2018, 42% of Americans think that the war on terrorism is already over?
Yep, yeah, that's, man, when I saw that, yes.
I have a big bruise from my face palm.
I look like a Muslim, you know, with the thing on his head from praying.
It's just from a face palm over that.
It's just killing me here.
Yeah.
And that we should, you know, part of me writing this report in the first place is trying to bring as much attention to this issue as possible.
You know, it's not that people didn't realize that veterans were having a hard time.
But I think when you, you know, put it in these terms of, oh, four times as many veterans and service members have died in the post 9-11 era by suicide than ever in, you know, military operations, that that is staggering.
That should really, really bother us.
And then just find out that 42% of the voting public is not aware that we've been still at war.
And to know that veterans coming back to civilian life or even service members on dwell time come back to this society that seems uncaring and completely ignorant of the sacrifice that they're making, we do know that that is linked to an increase of suicidal ideation because it creates a sense of purposelessness or a burden.
So yeah, we need to do anything we can to sort of spread the word on this and bring attention to veterans.
And I think a big part of that too is just to hear veteran stories and to be involved in their lives.
Yeah.
And as we've learned about on the show from previous guests, that this goes for the drone pilots too.
And you might think that, oh, come on.
Oh, absolutely.
You know, you're not in danger.
What's the problem with that?
Playing video games, right?
You can minimize it and mock them for, which is, you know, you rightfully mock them, right?
For fighting a war, hiding on the entire other side of the planet from the war zone.
That's what kind of warrior does that.
But then they kill themselves too, out of despair too, over.
In fact, one thing I read talked about how in a way there's a lot harder than being a B1 pilot because they sit there and monitor the people that they're going to kill sometimes for weeks at a time before they kill them.
So they really get to know them and they really are.
They're focusing on them as individuals and really learning about their family life.
Oh, there's his wife again.
And there's his two kids and his dog or whatever.
And then they kill him.
And then they you know, that's something that a bomber pilot doesn't have to worry about.
He only finds out later whether he hit his target or not or whatever, you know.
And so they got to live with that in a way that puts them in the heart of the action, even though it's through a monitor.
It's actually a lot harder on them than even an Apache pilot or something, maybe, you know?
Well, and I think it's important, you know, even from to even just a person in a support role that is behind a computer that is just supporting sort of larger operations, that you don't need to be boots on the ground in combat to experience something traumatic.
That military sexual trauma is a continuing problem that is linked very much to suicidal ideation.
There's reports showing that or literature, I should say, showing that showing that secondary exposure to violence.
So being part of an institution that commits a lot of violence, even if they're committing, even if they're doing good work, they're also obviously doing a lot of great ill.
Being involved in an institution that commits a lot of violence can be traumatic.
And then again, to bring up sort of that stress isolation, high operational tempo, that all of those things very much contribute to the problem, not to mention just the military culture that very much has that warrior mentality, that you should be resilient and you should be able to handle all of this to the point that you don't get help when you actually need it.
You know, we need to reframe that in a way of that it is the braver thing, the more courageous thing to actually know when you need help and then to seek it.
Yeah, that's such an important point.
And especially, you know, the whole tough guy, just have a beard, chin up and be a man kind of argument.
It's so shallow, but also kind of inarguable to write other than total breakdown.
Right?
Yeah.
And so, so like you're saying, if you could just change the narrative to no man, it's perfectly fine to say you need help and not worry about all that other stuff is actually really important.
You know, it sounds simple enough, but it's really the kind of thing to break a wall down, you know?
Absolutely.
And yet it would take like a cultural change and it wouldn't happen overnight.
I think it starts with command, sort of normalizing that.
There's reports coming out that while they have all this suicide prevention sort of material that they go over with troops, that often it's sort of treated as though it's just compulsory, like checking off the boxes.
And what sort of message does that send to someone who's just like, all right, I got to figure this out on my own.
Yeah.
All right.
So what's your best advice as far as you know, for people who need help with this and where they can go, including the VA, but also other than the VA too?
Oh, well, the, I mean, the number of resources is really, I mean, pretty incredible.
The issue is just getting access to some of them, but the VA is a wonderful place if you are having suicidal thoughts, calling the hotline that is available, that is effective.
And just seeing what's out there.
I think the biggest hurdle is just connecting those who need the help with it.
In terms of veterans and in terms of service members, there are so many resources in the military and outside supporting the military from, you know, chaplains to mental health care workers to social workers.
And they are available and it just takes a bit of strength to sort of realize that you need help and then to seek it.
But I think one of the biggest things, and it would be advice for any of your listeners who are just a part of the civilian population that we very much need to reach out to veterans.
It's actually shown in reports that for those who reach out to veterans, even when there's like a cold calling group in a community that calls veterans, that that lowers suicide rates in the area.
So being involved as a citizen and a civilian is very helpful in just showing care and listening to stories because so much of it is sort of veterans feeling isolated when they come home, whether that's put on themselves or not.
But we need to be an interested party, very much so.
Yeah.
And this is kind of a poor analogy, but I don't know, it might work that, you know, I knew a guy who really did not want to go to AA or I guess it was NA.
And then he went there because he had to, but it was his friends who were there.
And so he didn't think he was going to fit in, but he fit right in.
You know what I mean?
And I think there's probably a lot of that here too, right?
Absolutely.
And I mean, it's just the incredible number of programs that exist that are run by veterans.
There's this wonderful group at West, you know, I'm here in Boston, so it's West to me, but it's called Hot Rod Warriors.
And they just meet up and they build, you know, muscle cars together and they talk about their experiences and they have that community.
And what a difference that would be to, you know, that you're coming together maybe for a hobby, but then you're also able to support each other through difficult times.
And those sorts of organizations do exist.
It's just a matter of sort of seeing what's available in your community.
All right.
Well, listen, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your work on this and coming on this show to talk about it with us today, Ben.
It's been great.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for having me.
And I really appreciate you getting the word out about this report.
All right, you guys, that is Ben Suit.
He wrote this study for the Cost of War Project at Brown University, and it is called High Suicide Rates Among United States Service Members and Veterans of the Post-911 Wars.
And we're linking to it at antiwar.com.
