Veterans and Suicides: It’s Worse Than the VA Reports

The Veterans Administration is excluding a significant number of veterans from its annual report on suicide prevention. 

September is suicide-prevention month — an appropriate time to reflect on the tragedy of veteran suicides. You’ve likely heard that “22 veterans die each day by suicide.” But in 2019, that number suddenly dropped to 17 daily, according to the Veterans Administration’s annual report on suicide prevention. The VA takes credit for the improvements, attributing the change to its suicide-prevention programs and grants. Reducing these suicide numbers has been a major rationale for big budget increase requests for the Veterans Administration, now topping $325 billion.

At first, the trend looks encouraging. Then you realize this data has serious flaws that are either intentionally manipulated to make the situation look better than it is or incredibly insensitive to veterans.

How the VA Manipulates the Data

The VA report now includes only veterans who were activated for federal military service. There are three groups of veterans the VA omits in its suicide data: Reserve National Guard (R/NG), Dishonorable Discharges, and “self-injury mortality” without a documented suicide intent.

For years, the VA has been counting “veterans” as anyone who served in active duty, Army or Air Force National Guard, and military Reserves from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. But in 2019, the VA changed the rule to limit its count to only those eligible for VA services: 90 consecutive days of active duty, or 30 days in a combat zone or 20 years for total service in R/NG.

Many R/NG do not meet that criterion, and suicide data for an untold number of R/NG disappeared from the VA’s calculations, artificially lowering the death toll. (READ MORE: Afghanistan: How It Became America’s Disaster)

Are National Guard and Reserve really “veterans”? Absolutely. Anyone who wears the uniform and swears an oath to serve his or her country deserves that title. Active-duty R/NG attend 10-week boot camp, then NG/Reserve attend two days per month of training and two weeks per year of additional training. I know from my own Navy Reserve years that this does not even begin to grasp the time and work commitment. We must always be ready now, because we may be called up to serve active duty (including combat) at any time.

R/NG made up 45 percent of the total force sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. They proved their mettle time and time again, often better trained, better prepared, and more mature than their younger active-duty counterparts, because their civilian life experience contributes massively to the overall strength of the service. That’s why they are called “Twice the Citizen.” They do not just serve in the military; they give their higher proficiency to their country. (READ MORE: Mills Attacks Austin: Will Anyone Be Held Accountable for Afghanistan?)

But there is a huge difference after discharge. The VA provides several good services to active-duty veterans, but, unfortunately, many NG/Reserve veterans are blocked from access to the VA health system, burial in a veterans cemetery, and even receiving a flag for their casket. Does access to these benefits make a difference in suicide risk? We don’t know, because they can’t manage what they don’t measure.

But there are several other factors affecting the data:

• The number of suicides in the general population (non-veterans) also declined in 2018–2020. Did the VA get the benefit of other external factors unrelated to the VA?
• Over the last couple of years, while active-duty military suicide rates started to fall by 15 percent, National Guard suicides did not decline. Is there something about NG that puts them more/less at risk for suicide? If the VA does not count them in their analysis, we will never know.
• The number of living veterans declined from 18 million in 2018 to 16.5 million in 2022, according to the U.S. Census. This means there are fewer lives (and deaths) to count.
• Suicide deaths are now higher for those who have never deployed and/or are in their first year of service. By eliminating Guard and Reserve who were never deployed, is the VA erasing a higher-risk group? They are a built-in comparison group for research.
• The VA does not count suicides among many with a dishonorable discharge. Yet troops at the highest risk for suicide are those whose dishonorable discharge is related to a mental health condition. For example, those with PTSD are 11 times more likely to engage in problem conduct. It skews the results to only count those who were not in trouble.
• Deep Dive estimates that there are an additional uncounted 20 veteran suicides each day because medical examiners do not always list cause of “self-injury mortality” as suicide. A drug overdose, individual auto accident, poisoning, and even a gunshot wound may be called “accidental.” Additionally, death certificates that do not include veteran status are not computed in veteran suicide lists. A significant number of these may be suicides, and the VA should do a more thorough job at investigating these deaths.

By not including these other groups, the VA loses a research opportunity to better understand causes of suicide risk. Sound research should never involve cherry-picking the data. All should be included: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Veterans Lose a Sense of Belonging

Hope and the sense of belongingness are critically important in reducing suicide risk. How are R/NG veterans supposed to feel they belong when the VA ignores their deaths? As one of my clients told me, “If I kill myself, the VA says I don’t exist, I don’t matter; I’m ghosted by the VA before and after I die.”

The VA has ignored veterans before. Recall the 2014 scandal of hidden waiting lists at the Phoenix VA hospital, where 40 veterans died before they could be seen. At least 1,700 vets who wanted an appointment were never put on an official list. An Inspector General investigation identified 3,500 veterans nationwide impacted at 93 facilities by manipulations to make wait times look shorter than they really were. And in 2012, the VA intentionally hid veterans’ deaths from legionnaires disease from Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and myself. There is a theme here: No one is accountable for those they don’t count.

We cannot prevent what we refuse to see. All veterans matter, and the VA should include all veteran suicides in its next report. National Guard and Reserve veterans already do not get the VA benefits while they are alive. Please give them the benefit of counting them when they die. And please, give them all a flag for their casket.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, please call 988 for help.

Tim Murphy, Ph.D., is a psychologist specializing in trauma recovery. and the author of three books, including The Christ Cure: 10 Biblical Ways to Heal from Trauma, Tragedy and PTSD (2023). He served as a psychologist in the U.S. Navy Medical Service Corps, was elected eight times to the U.S. House of Representatives, and authored major mental health reform legislation receiving wide bipartisan support. His weekly podcasts on mental health are available at DrTimMurphy.com and LinkedIn.