Montana has the highest suicide rate in the United States. For starters, there’s the random geographical bad luck that the altitude of the state’s six most populous cities exceeds 3,000 feet, the elevation at which blood oxygen levels go down and suicide stats go way up. Along with seven Indian reservations and agriculture being a leading industry — farmers and natives are more likely to end their own lives than other Americans — veterans make up about 10 percent of the state’s population. According to the new Veterans Affairs secretary, Robert Wilkie, every day, 22 American vets kill themselves.
Breaking my self-imposed “no politics” hiatus because this article is so fantastic. Being a native Montanan myself, I appreciate almost every line, but that opening paragraph hits hard.
And also that those hippies in Missoula will occasionally waste an entire afternoon outdoors without killing any food.
I can tell you first-hand, this is absolutly true.