Culture of Stress: Why are service members taking their lives at such an alarming rate?

Culture of Stress: Why are service members taking their lives at such an alarming rate?, 31 July 2011, Patriot-News Op-Ed 

By: Mike Reid

 

Mike Reid, left, is shown with his father after returning from one of his deployments to Iraq. Reid grew up in the Harrisburg area and served in the Army for six years. He now lives in Georgia and works as a personal trainer

The most important thing to know about me is what I was doing during the years 2002 to 2008. In that time, I became “Army Strong” and spent nearly three of those years in Iraq.

It’s never made clear exactly what the Army slogan “Army Strong” means. I believe that I have the most accurate and truthful interpretation of what it stands for, and it has nothing to do with the commercials you see daily.

America’s service members feel the need to end their own lives at an alarming rate. It’s time we started talking about this, not to mention the increased amount of domestic violence and child abuse.

The armed forces suicide rate is double the national average. More American troops committed suicide in 2009 than died in combat in Afghanistan that same year: That is 381 suicides compared to 319 combat deaths. The statistic alone should make your stomach turn.

Those 381 suicides are spread among all four branches of the military — Army, Air Force, Marines and Navy — although 162 of them were Army soldiers. The military doesn’t count the suicides from Reservists or National Guard personnel, only active duty.

In 2010, the Army suicide number jumped up to 245, more than half of the 434 suicides militarywide. In 2011, just through the month of May, the number was already at 163 for the Army alone. The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs says roughly 600 military and former military personnel take their own lives each year.

Now, try to stomach this one. For every suicide in the military, at least five more service members are hospitalized for attempting to kill themselves.

The question on almost everybody’s mind is, what is causing all of these American troops to do this?

 

FULL ARTICLE AT: http://blog.pennlive.com/editorials/print.html?entry=/2011/07/culture_of_stress_what_are_ser.html

Maltreated And Hazed, One Soldier Is Driven To Take His Own Life

Maltreated And Hazed, One Soldier Is Driven To Take His Own Life, 7 June 2011, Stars and Stripes

By Megan McCloskey

Spc. Brushaun Anderson is shown in this image from Facebook

Alarmed by rising suicides in their ranks, U.S. Army officials have launched multiple studies and directives to address the problem. But a Stars and Stripes investigation reveals two recent cases in which that high-level concern was thwarted by failures of leadership on the ground — and two more soldier suicides were added to the grim roster.

For Army Spc. Brushaun Anderson, there was no escaping his torment.

The senior noncommissioned officers who ruled his life at a remote patrol base in Iraq ordered him to wear a plastic trash bag because they said he was “dirty.”

They forced him to perform excessive physical exercises in his body armor over and over again.

They made him build a sandbag wall that served no military purpose.

Anderson seemed to take it all in stride. Until New Year’s Day 2010, when the once-eager 20-year-old soldier locked himself inside a portable toilet, picked up his M4 rifle, aimed the barrel at his forehead and pulled the trigger.

Anderson left behind a note lamenting his failures in the military, and some soldiers in his unit immediately said that Anderson had been driven to kill himself by leaders bent on humiliating him.

“No matter what Spc. Anderson did, no matter how big or small the incident was, his punishment was always extremely harsh, [and] a lot of the time demeaning,” one corporal later told Army investigators.

“Spc. Anderson’s punishments were not like anyone else’s in the platoon,” another corporal said. “Spc. Anderson was singled out.”

The U.S. Army is confronting an unprecedented suicide crisis. Since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 1,100 soldiers have taken their own lives, with the numbers escalating each year for the last six years. Last year alone, 301 soldiers committed suicide — a new record.

 

FULL ARTICLE AT: http://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/suicide-in-the-military/maltreated-and-hazed-one-soldier-is-driven-to-take-his-own-life-1.145941#

The Cost Of War

The Cost Of War, 11 April 2011, Houston Chronicle

Clay Hunt was “a war hero and giant-hearted humanitarian,” read his obituary, detailing his tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his volunteer work in earthquake-stricken Haiti and Chile. As a Marine, “he often wondered why he survived when so many close friends and others paid the ultimate price for our nation’s freedom.”

The sad truth is that he didn’t survive. He returned from those wars with post-traumatic stress disorder and could never shake the survivor’s guilt at his comrades’ deaths. Finally, on March 31 of this year, he committed suicide in his Houston apartment, far from combat zones, but just as surely another battlefield casualty.

As reported by the Chronicle’s Lindsay Wise, Hunt, who had been active in suicide prevention efforts, had a hard time adjusting to civilian life after his discharge in 2009. He dropped out of college, divorced and had suicidal thoughts.

Things were looking up in recent months. He moved back to Houston, found a job and received medication for his depression and PTSD. But that didn’t save him.

Records are kept of suicides within the military: Last year, 468 military suicides were reported. But it’s impossible to say how many commit suicide after they leave the armed forces, since no statistics are kept unless a vet is treated by the Veterans Affairs agency.

FULL ARTICLE AT: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/7516062.html

Female Soldiers’ Suicide Rate Triples When At War

Female Soldiers’ Suicide Rate Triples When At War, 18 March 2011 , USA Today

By Gregg Zoroya

 

The suicide rate for female soldiers triples when they go to war, according to the first round of preliminary data from an Army study.

The findings, released to USA TODAY this week, show that the suicide rate rises from five per 100,000 to 15 per 100,000 among female soldiers at war. Scientists are not sure why but say they will look into whether women feel isolated in a male-dominated war zone or suffer greater anxieties about leaving behind children and other loved ones.

Even so, the suicide risk for female soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan is still lower than for men serving next to them, the $50 million study says.

Findings also show that marriage somehow helps inoculate male and female soldiers from killing themselves while they are overseas. Although these death rates among GI’s who are single or divorced double when they go to war, the rate among married soldiers does not increase, according to the study.

 

FULL ARTICLE AT: http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2011-03-18-1Asuicides18_ST_N.htm


Civilian soldiers’ suicide rate alarming

Civilian soldiers’ suicide rate alarming, USA Today, 25 Nov 2010

By: Gregg Zoroya

National Guard soldiers who are not on active duty killed themselves this year at nearly twice the rate of 2009, marring a year when suicides among Army soldiers on active duty appear to be leveling off, new Army statistics show.  86 non-active-duty Guard soldiers have killed themselves in the first 10 months of 2010, compared with 48 such suicides in all of 2009.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-11-26-1Atroopsuicides26_ST_N.htm?POE=click-refer