Army Suicides This Year Exceed 2012 Combat Deaths in Afghanistan

Even without Army data for October, the number of deaths believed to be suicides among U.S. Army personnel from January through September still surpass the combined military combat deaths in Afghanistan from January up to October 22.

In 2012, there have been a total of 247 suspected suicides among Army active and reserve duty personnel. Of those, 158 have been confirmed as suicides and 89 remain under investigation.

According to the Afghanistan Index database maintained by the Brookings Institution, there have been 222 combined military deaths in 2012 among active and reserve components from “hostile causes,” as of Sept. 28. (p. 11 Figure 1.17)

An additional 40 military fatalities were the result of “non-hostile causes,” which means they were fatalities not caused by the Taliban, insurgency forces or Afghan forces – so-called “green-on-blue” attacks.