Latest figures show 20 per cent of serving members of the US military have been diagnosed with or report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Male veterans are twice as likely to die by suicide as male non-veterans.

On average 18 veterans commit suicide each day.

It means that every 80 minutes a veteran dies by suicide.

Roughly a third of US soldiers who took their own lives had never been deployed abroad.

Soldiers needing help 'vanish' after leaving the military

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The US Government says it takes the welfare of former soldiers seriously. But the Department of Veteran Affairs says it's not always easy finding those who need help.




Driven to suicide by the horror of war.

Coleman Bean served two tours of duty for the US Military in Iraq. But what he witnessed there haunted him. He shot himself at home in 2008. He was 25. Coleman Bean's mother, Linda Bean said: "I was willing to overlook changes in behaviour... It's hard to know you didn't do what you should have done... That's hard to live with."

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