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Author: TriSec    Date: 04/28/2020 11:59:18

Good Morning.

Coronavirus is all. But today, we will try to look at some other things here at AAV.


Diving right in, we'll look again at an issue we've reported here for years. Despite years of effort, a statistical spike in the veteran's suicide rate seems to have struck the USMC.


A Pentagon report that details U.S. military suicides and suicide attempts in 2018 showed a 13% increase in the suicide rate for active-duty personnel compared with the previous year, with the Marine Corps suffering the highest rate of loss, followed by the Army.

In 2018, 325 active-duty service members, 81 reserve members and 135 National Guard members took their own lives, according to the 2018 Department of Defense Suicide Event Report released Monday.

The figures translate into suicide rates of 24.8 per 100,000 active-duty service members, 22.9 deaths per 100,000 for the reserves and 30.6 per 100,000 for the National Guard.

In 2017, the rates for the respective components were 21.9 per 100,000 for active duty, 25.7 per 100,000 for the reserves and 29.8 per 100,000 for the National Guard.

The 2018 data show a rising trend in suicide rates since at least 2011 for active-duty personnel, say the analysts with the DoD Psychological Health Center of Excellence who authored the report. The statistics indicate that suicides among active duty Air Force airmen and Marines are definitely trending upward, while those for the Army and Navy are showing a "less certain" rise, they said.

Broken down by service, the number of suicides in 2018 and rates per 100,000 active-duty members were: 139 suicides in the Army, for a rate of 29.5; 60 in the Air Force, for a rate of 18.5; 68 for the Navy, a rate of 20.7; and 58 deaths in the Marine Corps, for a rate of 31.4 per 100,000.

Just five years ago, the rates per 100,000 were 23 for the Army, 14.4 for the Air Force, 13.4 for the Navy and 23.1.

Still, the authors said, the overall active-duty suicide rate is comparable with civilian U.S. rates adjusted for age and gender using the most recent data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in 2017.

A report from the National Institutes of Mental Health on suicide trends in the U.S. found the rate of suicide in 2017 among all men was 22.4 per 100,000, and the rate for women was 6.1 per 100,000.


It's hard to tell if there has been any change in the rates over the years, but it's long been nationally reported as 20 veterans per day. It's unclear if they are included in the widely reported national rate of 123 persons per day.

We'll take a look next at some new military equipment. The ol' F-35 "Flying Turd" has long been a target of mine, but the Navy has also picked up some gems of late. You can check out all the problems with the new aircraft carrier coming online elsewhere. Today we'll think about the futuristic USS Zumwalt.

https://images05.military.com/sites/default/files/styles/full/public/defensetech-thumbnails/2017/03/uss-zumwalt-san-diego-1800.jpg?itok=G1Kf0O04


I actually saw this one with my own eyes; back in 2016 while she was still fitting out at the Bath Naval Shipyard in Maine. Since then, she's had a number of issues, including breaking down in the Panama Canal. Maybe it's ready for active duty now?


The Navy has accepted delivery of a next-generation stealth destroyer more than three years after its commissioning, the service announced Friday.

The destroyer Zumwalt has a working combat system and will move onto a new phase of developmental and sea testing, according to a news release from Naval Sea Systems Command. The ship was commissioned in 2016 and broke down a month later while passing through the Panama Canal.

The $4 billion ship has since faced other delays and cost overruns.

Navy officials are calling the delivery a "major milestone" for the Zumwalt, known as DDG 1000.

"The combat test team, consisting of ... sailors, Raytheon engineers, and Navy field activity teams, have worked diligently to get USS Zumwalt ready for more complex, multi-mission at-sea testing," Capt. Kevin Smith, a program manager with the Navy's Program Executive Office, Ships, said in a statement. "I am excited to begin demonstrating the performance of this incredible ship."

The Navy cut its original plans to buy more than two dozen of the new ships down to three. The Government Accountability Office last year slammed the Navy for ongoing problems with the 155mm deck guns that were planned for the Zumwalt-class destroyers.

In development, the service found the cost for a single round for the guns was about $800,000, leaving it essentially inoperable.

The Navy in 2018 changed the destroyers' primary mission from land attack to offensive surface strike. Modifications needed to make that switch cost about $1 billion, the GAO noted.

The Zumwalt is joining the U.S. Pacific Fleet and can officially count toward the Navy's ship totals. Its shape, structure and antenna arrangements "significantly reduce radar cross section, making the ship less visible" to enemies, according to the release.


But finally, of course there is coronavirus. Remember all the fanfare and self-congratulation when the genocidal mass-murder dispatched the USNS Comfort to New York harbor? As it turns out, the ship was mismanaged from the start, and the expected waves of patients never materialized. Resources that could have been used elsewhere were essentially wasted on a publicity stunt. Word is the Comfort is going to be pulling out of NYC and returning to her home port within the week.


The underused hospital ship USNS Comfort, sent urgently to New York City last month to help local hospitals battle the novel coronavirus pandemic, will return to Norfolk, Virginia, possibly as early as next week to prepare for another COVID-19 mission if necessary, the Pentagon said Friday.

The Comfort's sister ship, the USNS Mercy, sent from San Diego to Los Angeles last month on a similar mission, will also likely be withdrawn soon, but there have not yet been approvals from California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, said Jonathan Hoffman, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, at a briefing.

Upon its return to homeport in Norfolk, possibly in the next week or two, the Comfort will undergo maintenance and be restocked "to prepare it for another mission, but that will be FEMA's call," Hoffman said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Comfort arrived at Pier 90 on Manhattan's West Side on March 30 in what was then seen as a crucial step in efforts to help the city, the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak with more than 16,640 deaths recorded as of Friday, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

To underline the importance of the Comfort's mission, President Donald Trump made a rare departure from the White House to attend the ship's sendoff from Norfolk.

However, as of Tuesday, the ship -- with 1,000 beds, 12 operating rooms and a medical staff of about 1,000 -- had treated a total of only 179 patients, with 56 on board that day.

The limited use could be partly explained by the shifting missions assigned to the Comfort. The ship had been intended to treat only non-coronavirus patients, but officials then decided that there was little need to cope with an excess of non-COVID-19 patients in a city in lockdown.

The ship was converted to treat only COVID patients, but that need also wasn't there with the conversion of the nearby Javits Convention Center into a 1,500-bed all-COVID facility.


So, perhaps it's good that the numbers just weren't there to utilize the ship as intended - but like everything our psychopath passing for a president touches, it probably could have gone better.


 
 

6 comments (Latest Comment: 04/28/2020 16:25:14 by TriSec)
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