Data sought on veterans' suicide

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer




The parents of an Iraq war veteran who committed suicide and members of Congress on Wednesday questioned why there's not a comprehensive tracking system of suicide among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Mike Bowman, of Forreston, Ill., said his son, Spc. Timothy Bowman, 23, is a member of the "unknown fallen" not counted in statistics. His son, a member of the Illinois National Guard, took his own life in 2005 eight months after returning from war. Bowman said he considers his son a "KBA" — killed because of action.

"If the veteran suicide rate is not classified as an epidemic that needs immediate and drastic attention, then the American fighting soldier needs someone in Washington who thinks it is," Bowman said.

Bowman was one of several witnesses who testified before the House Veterans' Affairs Committee on the issue.

Rep. Bob Filner, the committee chairman, questioned why the comprehensive tracking wasn't already being done.

"They don't want to know this, it looks to me," said Filner, D-Calif. "This could be tracked."

Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's deputy chief patient care service officer for mental health at the Department of Veterans Affairs, defended the work being done by his agency to tackle the issue, including implementing a suicide prevention hotline.

"We have a major suicide prevention program, the most comprehensive in the nation," Katz said. Katz questioned why Filner was focusing on the number of suicides instead of looking at treatment programs implemented to help prevent suicide.

Awareness of suicide among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans was heightened earlier this year when the Army said its suicide rate in 2006 rose to 17.3 per 100,000 troops — the highest level in 26 years of record-keeping.

The Department of Veterans Affairs tracks the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who commit suicide, but only if they have been discharged from the military.

The Pentagon tracks the number of suicides in Iraq and Afghanistan. For an earlier story, a Pentagon spokeswoman told The Associated Press the military does not keep track of whether active duty troops who took who took their own lives served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In an e-mail on Wednesday, the same spokeswoman, Cynthia Smith, said, "We track all suicides, I just don't have combat service information readily available."

At least 152 troops have committed suicide in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center, which tracks casualties for the Pentagon.

On Oct. 31, the AP reported that preliminary research from the Department of Veterans Affairs had found that from the start of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, and the end of 2005, 283 troops who served in the wars who had been discharged from the military had committed suicide. On Wednesday, Katz said the VA's number had been changed to 144 because some of the veterans counted were actually in the active military and not discharged on the day they committed suicide.

Smith said that the military's suicide rate is still lower than that of the general population.

After leaving the military, however, veterans appear to be at greater risk for suicide than those who didn't serve. Earlier this year, researchers at Portland State University in Oregon found male veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide as their civilian counterparts.

In a report last May, the VA Inspector General said VA officials estimate 1,000 suicides per year among veterans receiving care within the agency and as many as 5,000 per year among all veterans.

"When decision makers do no have reliable data, we must rely on anecdotal evidence," said Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind. "While these may help inform us, it does not help us to develop strategies to diminish the risk and prevent incidents of suicide."

PUSSIES

PUSSIES::: I never had to do this. I used the "art of verbal persuasion" Therefore the following truths about "the company" show me what weak pussies our governement "spooks" have become.
I've done some things I am not proud of but never this B.S. and the politically correct justification of it.

This article burnt my ass. I am not usually an emotional person but....

WASHINGTON - The CIA's waterboarding of a top al-Qaida figure was approved at the top levels of the U.S. government, a former CIA agent said Tuesday as agency director Gen. Michael Hayden prepared for questioning by congressional panels about the destruction of videotapes of terror suspect interrogations.



According to the former agent, waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah got him to talk in less than 35 seconds. The technique, which critics say is torture, probably disrupted "dozens" of planned al-Qaida attacks, said John Kiriakou, a leader of the team that captured Zubaydah, a major al-Qaida figure.

Kiriakou did not explain how he knew who approved the interrogation technique but said such approval comes from top officials.

"This isn't something done willy nilly. This isn't something where an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he's going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner," he said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. "This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department."

Each time CIA agents wished to use waterboarding or any other harsh interrogation technique, they had to present a "well-laid out, well-thought out reason" to top government officials, Kiriakou said. In Zubaydah's case, Kiriakou said the waterboarding had immediate effect.

"The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," Kiriakou said in an interview first broadcast Monday evening on ABC News' World News. "From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

Details of Zubaydah's interrogation came as Hayden prepared for two days of questioning by the Senate and House intelligence panels about the CIA's destruction of the videotapes. Both are closed sessions.

Kiriakou said he did not know the interrogation of Zubaydah was being recorded by the CIA and did not know the tapes subsequently were destroyed.

"Like a lot of Americans, I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that waterboarding may be torture versus the quality of information that we often get after using the waterboarding technique," Kiriakou, now retired from the CIA, told ABC News. "And I struggle with it."

He added: "What happens if we don't waterboard a person and we don't get that nugget of information and there's an attack. I would have trouble forgiving myself. ... At the time, I felt that waterboarding was something that we needed to do."

Waterboarding is a harsh interrogation technique that involves strapping down a prisoner, covering his mouth with plastic or cloth and pouring water over his face. The prisoner quickly begins to inhale water, causing the sensation of drowning.

Hayden told CIA employees last week that the CIA taped the interrogations of two alleged terrorists in 2002. He said the harsh questioning was carried out only after being "reviewed and approved by the Department of Justice and by other elements of the Executive Branch." Hayden said Congress was notified in 2003 both of the tapes' existence and the agency's intent to destroy them.

The White House refuses to talk about specific types of interrogation techniques but insists that the United States does not torture.

The CIA destroyed the tapes in November of 2005. Exactly when Congress was notified and in what detail is in dispute.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the CIA claims it told the committee of the tapes' destruction at a hearing in November 2006. Rockefeller said, however, that the hearing transcript found no mention of that subject.

The House committee first learned the tapes had been destroyed in March 2007, according to Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

In last week's message, Hayden told CIA employees that "the leaders of our oversight committees in Congress were informed of the videos years ago and of the Agency's intention to dispose of the material. Our oversight committees also have been told that the videos were, in fact, destroyed."

But Reyes said Monday that Hayden's claim that Congress was properly notified "does not appear to be true

Failure to communicate…

Failure to communicate…

by Timothy Kendrick

This was one of my biggest faults in my entire existence on this earth. For many years I did not listen to anything except what I wanted to hear. My mouth overrode my, er, uh ass on more than one occasion.
I did not realize at the time that the greatest key to success was the Art of Listening. Years later I would hear Steven Covey say “work diligently to understand than to be understood”
Looking back and to this moment, every successful relationship I have is because of my ability to listen. Get my family together and they are the biggest bunch of talkers I have ever heard. The only one who listens is my Step-Dad. My mom jokes sometimes that I am the only one who made any money out of speaking. The truth is, it is from listening that I made any money.
I worked in sales, actually still do (we are all selling something whether we realize it or not). I found the best salesmen or saleswomen are the best listeners. The one’s who ask the right questions, find the needs (challenges) of the client and offer a viable solution.
You can’t find out anything if you are talking all the time. The 80-20 rule works best here. Brian Tracy says he thinks of it as a giant spotlight and it should be on the other person 80% of the time and on himself 20%.
It is a human fact of nature that we are more interested in ourselves than we are of others. TAKE AN INTEREST IN OTHER PEOPLE you will be amazed at what you can learn. Be sincere when you do this you will be amazed at the results.