US military suicides increase
War really should be the very last resort—the damage it does to both sides is terrible. Halimah Abdullah in McClatchy:
Eight years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq have etched indelible scars on the psyches of many of the nation’s servicemen and women, and the U.S. military is losing a battle to stem an epidemic of suicides in its ranks.
Despite calls by top Pentagon officials for a sea change in attitudes about mental health, millions of dollars in new suicide prevention programming and thousands of hours spent helping soldiers suffering from what often are euphemistically dubbed "invisible wounds," the military is losing ground.
The Department of Defense Friday reported that there were 160 reported active-duty Army suicides in 2009, up from 140 in 2008. Of these, 114 have been confirmed, while the manner of death in the remaining 46 remains to be determined.
"There’s no question that 2009 was a painful year for the Army when it came to suicides," said Col. Christopher Philbrick, the deputy director of the Army Suicide Prevention Task Force, in a statement, despite what he called "wide-ranging measures last year to confront the problem."
While the military’s suicide rate is comparable to civilian rates, the increase last year is alarming because the armed services traditionally had lower suicide rates than the general population did.
"I look at the numbers of each service, and that rate has gone up at the same rate across the services," Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a gathering of military mental health professionals and advocates this week. "This isn’t just a ground force problem."
Some of the suicides are young men, fresh from deployments and haunted by memories, who shoot themselves after they return from their second or third tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, or when romantic relationships turn sour, sometimes due to long separations or post-traumatic stress.
Others are career officers who quietly nurse addictions to drugs or alcohol and finally decide to silence their ghosts.
An increasing number are female soldiers, who rarely committed suicide before but now are killing themselves at a much higher rate…
I was a Field Artillery Combat Medic with the 78TH Lightning Division
on the front line for 128 days during the Battle of the Bulge and the
1st day at the Ludendof Bridge cossing at Remagen, Germany.
In that battle the US sustained 80,000 killed, captured or wounded.
The Germans lost 100,000 killed, captured or wounded.. After 65
years I still cannot erase the memory as I ran unknowingly into a mine
field to respond to a call for a young soldier who was just blown to
pieces by a land mine. Yes, I do have PTSD today. I am now 86 years old
frank bressler
31 March 2010 at 7:42 am
Thank you for commenting. My uncle Choc, who recently died at 90, served in the Army in the European Theater. It was a terrible war, one into which we were forced, and I am proud of the US response. Thank you for your service.
LeisureGuy
31 March 2010 at 9:35 am