Army finally waking up on what does not work

The good news is that they are trying to come up with another program to address this. That must mean they finally understand that BattleMind does not work. The bad news, well they are still trying to pin the suicides on other problems other than PTSD. I'm no rocket scientist but when you have PTSD, you do have all the other problems because you have PTSD and are unable to deal with the "usual" problems the same way you used to be able to deal with them. The Army also seems to be unable to explain how it is that a lot of the suicides happened while being treated for "mental health issues" at the same time.

Did they look at troops deployed on medications for PTSD? I bet this plays a role as well considering they are supposed to be getting help with therapy and monitored by a doctor when they are on medication.

Officials: Army suicides at 3-decade high
The Associated Press
By PAULINE JELINEK – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Suicides among U.S. soldiers rose last year to the highest level in decades, the Army announced Thursday. At least 128 soldiers killed themselves in 2008. But the final count is likely to be considerably higher because 15 more suspicious deaths are still being investigated and could also turn out to be self-inflicted, the Army said.

A new training and prevention effort will start next week. And Col. Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatric consultant to the Army surgeon general, made a plea for more U.S. mental health professionals to sign on to work for the military.

"We are hiring and we need your help," she said.

The new suicide figure compares with 115 in 2007 and 102 in 2006 and is the highest since record keeping began in 1980. Officials calculate the deaths at a rate of roughly 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers — which is higher than the adjusted civilian rate for the first time since the Vietnam War, officials told a Pentagon news conference.

"We need to move quickly to do everything we can to reverse this disturbing ... number," Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said.

Officials have said that troops are under tremendous and unprecedented stress because of repeated and long tours of duty due to the simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The stress has placed further burdens on an overwhelmed military health care system also trying to tend to huge numbers of troops suffering from post-traumatic stress, depression and other mental health problems as well as physical wounds and injuries of tens of thousands.

Yearly increases in suicides have been recorded since 2004, when there were 64 — only about half the number now. And they've occurred despite increased training, prevention programs and psychiatric staff.

When studying individual cases, officials said they found that the most common factors for suicides were soldiers suffering problems with their personal relationships, legal or financial issues and problems on the job. click link for more