Eight soldiers committed suicide in eight days of New Year

We were told year after year the Army "gets it" and has taken steps to stop the suicides. Year after year it has been proven the steps taken are not the right ones but they keep walking into a minefield. With all the efforts, all the programs they've come up with, all the efforts to reduce the stigma and all the money spent, the numbers went up instead of down. Will they ever understand that this is like buying more rubber bullets and hoping they will finally work once they have enough of them?

Perhaps the most frightening part of all of this is that while their attempts to prevent suicides have apparently failed, they must have been able to prevent at least some of them. If the suicide prevention hotlines along with the rest of the groups sprouting up around the country are any indication, some of what they have been doing has saved lives, but with the numbers going up, there is an untold story here. How many would have been saved if the Army had changed how they address suicides when their attempts had the reverse effect?

Would they have been able to save more lives if they understood why PTSD strikes some and not others? Would they have saved lives if they did more than just acknowledge the redeployments increased the risk of PTSD? Would they have saved lives if they stopped the practice of deploying soldiers with PTSD and a pocket full of pills back into combat? Would they have saved marriages?

They can hold as many conferences as they want, make as many speeches as they have vocal cords for, but while their intentions are good, if they have learned nothing thus far, then it is worse than doing nothing.

The suicides claiming more lives than the enemy, topped off with the suicides of veterans is only part of the story. When a soldier is discharged but is not yet in the VA system, no one is keeping track of them. How many more committed suicide after service but before the VA had seen them?

Chiarelli addresses early rash of 2010 suicides

By Gregg Zoroya - USA TODAY
Posted : Friday Jan 29, 2010 7:22:42 EST

WASHINGTON — Alarmed by the suicides of eight soldiers in the year’s first eight days, the Army’s No. 2 general told commanders to have face-to-face contact with GIs to remind them “each one is valued by our Army,” according to the Jan. 8 memorandum provided to USA TODAY.

Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s vice chief of staff, reinforced that message last week, telling leaders in a videoconference they must pay extra attention to soldiers who are moving from one installation to another and may need more help, says Col. Chris Philbrick, head of the Army’s suicide task force.

Although Army officials say the suicide rate has dropped since then, Chiarelli’s message illustrates the continuing challenge the service faces despite an anti-suicide campaign that started last year.

The military faces a suicide “crisis,” said Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a conference in Washington this month.

The 160 confirmed and suspected Army suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2009 was a record. Winter months were the worst, records show. Twenty-nine soldiers in all parts of the Army killed themselves in January 2009, nearly twice the 15 killed in combat that month. In February, 27 more committed suicide. The Marine Corps suffered a record 52 suicides last year.
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Chiarelli addresses early rash of 2010 suicides