Suicide Rivals The Battlefield In Toll On U.S. Military

Stephen Colley, was on suicide watch, he was tested, he said he was suicidal, but still somehow, something along the way was dropped and Stephen Colley is no longer alive. This happens all too often when they don't receive the help they need to heal. They can say they have this program and that program, but if these programs don't work, they do little good. They can say they understand PTSD but to discover how little they really understand, all we have to do is read reports like this and then it becomes clear. The numbers of suicides and attempted suicides go up for a reason.

Suicide Rivals The Battlefield In Toll On U.S. Military
by Jamie Tarabay

Jae C. Hon/AP
Marines wait outside a building to take psychological tests in September 2009. The military assesses troops in search of clues that might help predict mental health issues.

June 17, 2010
Nearly as many American troops at home and abroad have committed suicide this year as have been killed in combat in Afghanistan. Alarmed at the growing rate of soldiers taking their own lives, the Army has begun investigating its mental health and suicide prevention programs.

But the tougher challenge is changing a culture that is very much about "manning up" when things get difficult.

This is the first in an occasional series of stories on the problem of suicides in the military.

Stephen Colley, 22, killed himself in May 2007, six months after returning from a tour in Iraq.


The Case Of Stephen Colley

Military veteran Edward Colley served in the Air Force and the Army. Three of his children also served in the military, and his son-in-law was awarded a Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq.

Colley, 53, and his wife, who live in Los Angeles, also have three other kids, but the tradition of military service is on hold. "Mom prohibits the younger ones from joining the military now," he says. "You might understand the prohibition in our house."

The mother's ban was imposed after their son Stephen killed himself in May 2007, six months after returning from a tour in Iraq. Stephen, 22, had suffered depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and his young marriage was in trouble.

Stephen was participating in an Army-run mental health assessment program. His father's main complaint against the Army is what it missed in screening his son. "The day after he told the folks in that reassessment that he was planning on committing suicide, he did," Ed Colley says, pausing. "Yeah, wow."

It was Stephen's second mental health assessment. The first, right after he came back from Iraq, seemed pretty normal.


He was on a superhighway towards suicide and there were many off ramps, many opportunities for something different to have happened.


But during his time in Taji, in central Iraq, the helicopter mechanic spent 24 hours under suicide watch. That information never made it to his new commander in Fort Hood, Texas.
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