Dee Finney's blog

start date July 20, 2011

today's date October 5, 2012

page 325

TOPIC:  SUICIDES IN THE U.S. MILITARY

NOTE:  A long, long time ago, I had the argument of my life with my first husband, who was a U.S. Army Veteran, who was on the U.S. Olympic sharpshooter team.  I had very young sons at the time (this was in the 1960's) and I swore to my husband that I would never allow my sons to go to war, that I would take them to Canada if necessary. 

We almost ended up divorced after that.  What mother would give up her babies to insane war?  Not me.

Here is an e-mail I received today.  After losing thousands of soldiers over the years, here is just one month's statistics of suicide after coming home from war.

MANPREET ROMANA/AFP/Getty Images

A Marine sergeant runs from an IED blast in Afghanistan in 2009

New Pentagon data show U.S. troops are killing themselves at the rate of nearly one a day so far in 2012, 18% above 2011′s corresponding toll. ”The continual rise in the suicide rate has frustrated all in the military,” says Elspeth “Cam” Ritchie, a retired Army colonel and chief psychiatric adviser to the Army surgeon general. “The rise in the suicide rate continues despite numerous recommendations from the Army and [Department of Defense] task forces.”

There were 154 U.S. military suicides in the first 155 days of 2012, the Associated Press reports, compared with 130 over the same period last year. That’s 50% more troops than were killed in action in Afghanistan, and the highest suicide toll in the U.S. military since 9/11.

Suicide — and the reasons for it — has been a vexing problem for the U.S. military ever since its rate began eclipsing that of the U.S. population. In 2010, the Army noted that “historically, the suicide rate has been significantly lower in the military than among the U.S. civilian population.”

(PHOTOS: Suicide in the Recruiters’ Ranks)

But that began to change as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — initially thought of as short-term affairs — dragged on for years. More critical than their duration was the fact that a relatively small number of U.S. troops kept being sent back for multiple combat tours.

Repeated tours have driven up the rate of posttraumatic stress disorder, which in turn generates an increase in suicide attempts among those suffering from PTSD. Even though many troops who have killed themselves did not deploy, they trained amid the dread of those who did. There is a sense, some service members say, that suicide — or at least suicide attempts — can be contagious.

“There are two areas which we should explore further,” says Ritchie, a regular Battleland contributor. “The high optempo [operations tempo] of deployed units, which means that leaders do not really know their soldiers; and the easy availability of firearms, the ‘gun in the nightstand,’ which, unfortunately, leads to too many impulsive suicides, and occasionally homicides.”

(SPECIAL: America’s Next War)

The Army’s suicide rate eclipsed the age-adjusted civilian rate in 2008, more than six years after the 9/11 attacks that sparked the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Suicide may follow in the wake of its triggers — it can take years for deployments, or the prospect of deployments, to sink in and lead some service personnel to take their own lives. Suicides will likely continue to rise for a while, even as the U.S. military has ended its war in Iraq and winds down its presence in Afghanistan. “It can be called a lagging indicator,” Ritchie says.

That may not make a lot of sense, but no one ever said the act of taking one’s life is logical. If it were, the legions of military mental-health professionals focused on combating it would have figured out how to halt this epidemic by now.

PHOTOS: Battleland Diary, May 25–June 1

Reuters

Suicides Outpacing War Deaths for Troops

Published: June 8, 2012

Suicides have increased even as the United States military has withdrawn from Iraq and stepped up efforts to provide mental health, drug and alcohol, and financial counseling services.

The military said Friday that there had been 154 suicides among active-duty troops through Thursday, a rate of nearly one each day this year. The figures were first reported this week by The Associated Press.

That number represents an 18 percent increase over the 130 active-duty military suicides for the same period in 2011. There were 123 suicides from January to early June in 2010, and 133 during that period in 2009, the Pentagon said.

By contrast, there were 124 American military fatalities in Afghanistan as of June 1 this year, according to the Pentagon.

Suicide rates of military personnel and combat veterans have risen sharply since 2005, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan intensified. Recently, the Pentagon established a Defense Suicide Prevention Office.

On Friday, Cynthia Smith, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said the Pentagon had sought to remind commanders that those who seek counseling should not be stigmatized.

“This is a troubling issue, and we are committed to getting our service members the help they need,” she said. “I want to emphasize that getting help is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of strength.”

In a letter to military commanders last month, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said that “suicide prevention is a leadership responsibility,” and added, “Commanders and supervisors cannot tolerate any actions that belittle, haze, humiliate or ostracize any individual, especially those who require or are responsibly seeking professional services.”

But veterans’ groups said Friday that the Pentagon had not done enough to moderate the tremendous stress under which combat troops live, including coping with multiple deployments.

“It is clear that the military, at the level of the platoon, the company and the battalion, that these things are not being addressed on a compassionate and understanding basis,” said Bruce Parry, chairman of the Coalition of Veterans Organizations, a group based in Illinois. “They need to understand on a much deeper level the trauma the troops are facing.”

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, called suicides among active-duty military personnel “the tip of the iceberg.” He cited a survey the group conducted this year among its 160,000 members that found that 37 percent knew someone who had committed suicide.

Mr. Rieckhoff attributed the rise in military suicides to too few qualified mental health professionals, aggravated by the stigma of receiving counseling and further compounded by family stresses and financial problems. The unemployment rate among military families is a particular problem, he said.

“They are thinking about combat, yeah, but they are also thinking about their wives and kids back home,” he said.

For 40 years the army has been keeping close track of suicides among its officers and enlisted men. During the long dull years of peace the suicide rate tends to climb higher & higher in the service until a war comes and soldiers stop killing themselves. Just before the Spanish-American War army suicides reached a record high, only to drop away to almost nothing during the fighting. The same trend was discernible before the World War.

Since then the rate has again been rising. In 1933 nine officers and 48 men killed themselves.

U.S. MILITARY PREVENTION LINKS

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&rlz=1R2ACGW_enUS361&q=u.s.+military+suicide+PREVENTION+&oq=u.s.+military+suicide+PREVENTION+&gs_l=serp.3..33i29l4.8546.15879.0.16302.26.25.0.0.0.2.309.4883.0j13j9j1.23.0.les%3Bcfrsh..0.0...1.1.ChO1YVGtpe4&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=215be571d3d42398&biw=1280&bih=783