Military.com recently reported on the numbers of suicides attempted on defense facilities, sometimes called ‘parking lot suicides’. Specifically, they state that 260 suicide attempts have been recorded on Veterans Administration facilities. Stories of a mental health crisis have been associated with the military with the onset of the PTSD diagnosis in the 1970s. At the same time, stories of student crisis are also emerging as colleges and universities struggle to support students dealing with depression and anxiety (see this New York Times article). Which group is struggling the most? Our data (n=9,357; 2017)  shows that cadets, both ROTC and academy cadets, have about the same levels of self-reported depression with 9% of cadets indicating that they have occasionally or not at all experienced depression compared to 11% of civilian students. These differences are even greater when looking at self-reports of mental health status. However, when asked to assess their mental health overall, civilian students are much more likely to say that their mental health is ‘poor’ or ‘fair’ – 7% among cadets but 31% among civilian students.

It is important to remember that all cadets are screened before joining the services which probably limits the number of people with extreme problems or issues. That said, mental health issues appear to be impacting this generation as a whole and many people joining the services bring the issues and problems associated with their generation.