I C&P'd this from mikeb302000's blog:

"As discussed here, in trying to find reasons or causes for the alarming upward trend in military suicides, TIME Magazine reporters Mark Thompson and Nancy Gibbs suggest that combat trauma alone can’t account for the trend and offer the following data:
Nearly a third of the suicides from 2005 to 2010 were among troops who had never deployed; 43% had deployed only once. Only 8.5% had deployed three or four times. Enlisted service members are more likely to kill themselves than officers, and 18-to-24-year-olds more likely than older troops. Two-thirds do it by gunshot; 1 in 5 hangs himself. And it’s almost always him: nearly 95% of cases are male. A majority are married.
“Two-thirds do it by gunshot.” Of course, you say. Our military are trained to use guns, they are “the tool of their trade,” troops have access to guns and many personally own firearms in their homes.
Naturally, Defense and military leaders are doing everything within their power to prevent or at least reduce this horrible, unnecessary loss life among the troops.

As part of what these leaders are doing to combat the suicide “epidemic,” they would like to talk to our servicemen and women who own a personal firearm and live off post.

There is one small catch, however. A relatively new law backed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) seems to prevent them from talking to these servicemembers
followed by this comment:

"Greg CampAugust 19, 2012 11:05 AM
What, you mean that in an all-volunteer military, the commanding officers can't take away the personally owned weapons of soldiers and Marines? You mean the government has limits in how it can restrict choice?

Mikeb, you've served in the military. Remember how psychiatric care was seen? Imagine how hard it would be to get someone to seek help if that person knew his weapons would be taken away from him. You rant and rave about requiring psychological testing for civilians, but what you ignore is that the same thing would happen.

You live in this fantasy world in which everyone trusts your good intentions. You think that everyone trusts the good intentions of the government and of mental health professionals. If you learn nothing else from my side, understand that a large portion of the American people do not trust any of those. "

for two reasons.

The first reason for doing so is that the original article was, at least earlier today, unavailable at the linked website (http://themoderatevoice.com/156434/the-military-suicide-%E2%80%98epidemic%E2%80%99-and-an-nra-backed-law/).

The second reason is that I don't comment at his blog anymore, since he insists that lying sacks-of-shit's--both those who sign with a screen name and those who sign as anonymous trolls-whose comments consist of nonsensical assertions and outright fabrications have their lies and distortions published as if they were genuine arguments instead of the handwaving horseshittery that they are. That policy is his right, and I support that right; I just refuse to consider the exercise of dealing with gishgalloping gunzslingerz as equivalent to debate and will not do so.

The above comment is coming from a moron (Mr. Greg Camp) who has stated unequivocally (in a number of comments going back to earlier this year at mikeb302000's blog) that he does not trust and would not consider seeking help from a mental health professional. A guy who likes to play dress up and pretend he's a badass olden dayz gunzslinger. And Mr. Camp accuses mikeb302000 of living in a fantasy world? That's rich.

The sad fact is that it is likely that relaxed standards of recruitment (re: mental health and general intellect); the harsh realities of finance, maintaining interpersonal relationships with loved ones and living/working in a highly regulated environment where refusal/inability to adhere to standards and rules may result in something much more serious than simply being sacked are probably all contributory factors to the high incidence of military suicides among those troops on active duty.

I would like to see some data re: which service branches see the highest rates of suicide and what steps each branch takes to deal with mental health issues amongst its recruits and the professional soldiers.

I would also like to see some data about how many of those troops who suicide are "first termers" and how many have re-enlisted.

Those two data sets might help me and others to gain a clearer understanding of the situations and conditions that lead to the despair that drives young men (and the study published indicates that they are, overwhelmingly, young men) in uniform to commit suicide.

The issue of whether properly trained young men may or may not have private weapons while serving in the military is one that is neither new nor previously unaddressed. I don't know what the policy is on U.S. military bases, or those in foreign countries today. I DO know that while I served (1969-1972) in Germany with the USAF that NO non-issue weapons were held by ANY service personnel while they were assigned to my station. I know this because I worked in the building that housed the base armory, it was part of my duty section. If you wanted to go the range, or go hunting, you came to the armory and signed out your weapon. I cannot speak to what regulations covered those who lived in private quarters, off-base, but I'm guessing, considering the laws of Germany at that time that they were under similar restraints (German civilians had their own set of firearms laws to live and deal with).

The only Air Force personnel that I ever saw armed were those who were performing duties as Security Police. The only Army personnel, including the Airborne and AADCOM troops stationed on my base, I ever saw armed while on duty were MP's or, in two specific instances, troops who were in deployment mode for possible deployment to the mid-east during a period of international tension there.

No troops in any barracks I ever lived in had permission to hold personal firearms while in a barracks or duty station with the exception of those mentioned above. Somehow we all managed to survive the experience of living in close proximity to other highly testosterstoned young men--for FOUR FREAKIN' YEARS! without killing anyone or killing ourselves. Were there any suicides/homicides of or by servicemen? Certainly. Were there any suicides/homicides committed with firearms? Without a doubt. Did I hear about suicides and homicides on either AFN (Armed Forces Network) or read about it in the "Stars and Stripes" (DoD's "official" newspaper), the Wiesbaden AB newsletters or "The Overseas Weekly" ( a cross between "The National Enquirer" and a serious newspaper with predictable content) ? Occasionally. What I did not hear, or read about, at the height of the Vietnam War when over a half million U.S. troops were "in country" some for several consecutive tours of duty was anything approaching the barrage of news items about violent, self-inflicted death or homicide by service members on active duty. Nor, afaia, were there stories in U.S. papers or on broadcast outlets for years after the War ended about U.S. combat veterans going on shooting sprees or killing themselves. Did those things happen?
They most certainly did. Did they happen with the frequency with which we now see them happening? My admittedly limited research on the intertoobz suggests that, no, they did not.

Looking back on those years and the number of drunken parties along with the inherent differences and rivalries between service branches I am unaware of a better set of policies regulating the retention and use of private firearms by military personnel while on or off duty and whether on or off a military reservation.

I am fairly certain that Mr. Camp, considering his adamantine indignorance of mental health counseling protocols, has zero interest in looking beyond his childish infatuation with firearms and that his interests in the matter will be confined to his repeating the nonsensical assertions that he had made in his comment, above.

That the man is a college level instructor is, to me, somewhat troubling. I guess it's better than his being a cop or GOD forbid, a security guard or neighborhood watcher. He is a soulmate of George Zimmerman, iow, a gun-toting moron with very serious self-esteem issues who might, at any moment, decide that the world needs his 2nd Amendment correctives. He considers himself a patriot and citizen; I consider him a silly boy with dangerous toys.