Military suicides higher than combat deaths

We DO NOT patrol with unloaded weapons!!
US and NATO policies have NOTHING to do with it!!

I don't know where you got those ideas but you are flat-out wrong.
DO NOT try and politicize this problem...
Try this:
You've been home two of the last five years, The kid who was a bump in your wife's belly when you left is now a child who screams when you go to hold him/her because they don't know who the hell you are, your loyal 12yo kid is now 14 and wants to know why he should listen to you because you're never around, and tells you he likes it better when you're gone....
Your wife has decided that she has had enough of worrying about you for months on end and has handed you divorce papers with an abrupt "I just can't live like this anymore." then moves out to go live with her boyfriend who she was screwing while you were in a war zone. She also wiped out your bank account, and maxed all the credit cards that YOU are responsible for paying down because your name is on them
So.....here you are, some of your friends are dead, you saw them die. Your family life is torn to shreds, you are $40,000 in debt, you're maligned by your own kids, the woman you vowed to love and cherish is pregnant by some civilian bum, shacking up with him, while you're back to living in the barracks contemplating spending the next 25 years to pay your way out of debt that you didn't aquire but are responsible for anyway, and you just sold your car to get a lawyer.....

The scenario I have just laid out is an amalgamation of a LOT of stories in the DoD suicide report, some grimmer than others, but none are pretty, and they have in common that some poor bastard reached the end of his own rope and decided that it was just too hard to hold on any more. And it AINT policy that pushes them to that edge, it's far more personal than that.

I READ the 450 page DoD suicide report.......I have a copy of it in my office.
The military has researched exaustivly every suicide in the last 5 years trying to find common threads, if there is a suicide EVERY member of your chain of command and NCO chain, from your squad or team leader, ALL THE WAY UP to the brigade commander and Command Sergeant Major, report to a review board made up of General Officers from throughout the service branches to try and find out what happened and why, and what if anything could have been done to prevent it, and if there were warning signs. This board is not convened to find fault, but to find fact in order to put together a comprehensive plan to proactivly prevent Serviceperson suicides by arming each service member with the mindset to prepare for battle stressors and stressors from home as a result of deployment. The plan is called "Total Soldier Fitness" and it's being fielded but it's too soon to tell how much of a help it is, or if it will be of any help at all.

Fact is, no two people are alike, so no one solution is going to be the "silver bullet" that stops service person suicides, everyone has their own personal limits, and everyone is different. As repeted depolyments continue to stress service members and their families, these things are going to continue to happen. The divorce rate in the Special Forces is out of this world because they deploy several times a year....and can't even tell their spouses where they are going due to the nature of their missions. Now imagine YOU are a Special Forces wife, your husband is gone again...you don't know where...and the death notification team arrives at your neighbor's door, to tell her that HER Green Beret is dead....How long do you think you can hold on?? How long before you go live with your mother, leaving him a goodbye letter on a set of divorce papers in a half empty house, because you have your limits too, and you have been pushed past them too many times now, and you're tired of being afraid every damn day??
And what do you imagine it's going to do to him?

Policy? Ammo?....We fu*kin WISH it was that simple.