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I thought I would bring this up because of something I read in the LA Times.
And there is something I find very disturbing in this, which is why nobody at the "benefits office" said anything about this visit. However, knowing that in most cases the people who staff these offices are not military but civilians, I am not surprised.
So maybe the solution to end suicides is as simple as reducing the insurance, or outright eliminating it.
Looking closer at the role of life insurance in military suicides - latimes.comArmy Spc. James Christian Paquette walked into the benefits office at Ft. Wainwright, Alaska, with a question: Did his military life insurance policy pay in cases of suicide? He was assured that it did.
Less than two weeks later, he shot and killed himself — and his family collected $400,000.
His widow struggles with the question of whether he would have proceeded with his plan if suicide had not been covered. "He just wanted to know we would be provided for," Jami Calahan said. "It may have been a weight taken away."
The role of life insurance has not been closely examined in the quest to understand why 352 active-duty service members took their own lives last year — more than double the number a decade earlier.
And there is something I find very disturbing in this, which is why nobody at the "benefits office" said anything about this visit. However, knowing that in most cases the people who staff these offices are not military but civilians, I am not surprised.
So maybe the solution to end suicides is as simple as reducing the insurance, or outright eliminating it.