Army Reports Record Number of Suicides

This story still bothers me because of this "Iraq changed him, he came back kind of an angry man," and what the Army claimed in this same report that there didn't seem to be connections between deployment and suicide. At Fort Hood the majority of the victims had never been in combat, or had served only one tour, and none were connected to the mass shooting of soldiers here one year ago.
What do they mean by the "majority" when we're reading about suicides after they come home a lot more often than we read about any other history? For the men and women who did not deploy but committed suicide, is anyone asking why they would do it? Did it have anything to do with a combat death of someone they knew? Did it have anything to do with family issues? People commit suicide due to a lot of things but the one fact we cannot escape is they only do it because they lost hope that tomorrow can be any better for them. That loss of hope robs them of a reason to get up and try again.

Staff Sgt. Sarah Campbell Hester with her husband Richard Hester. Richard Hester committed suicide in 2006.  (CBS)

FORT HOOD, Texas, Nov. 5, 2010
Army Reports Record Number of Suicides
Unit Leaders Are Now Being Trained to Better Spot Warning Signs, Encourage Soldiers to Get Professional Help
By Don Teague
CBS) After returning from Iraq in 2006, Staff Sgt. Sarah Campbell Hester was looking forward to enjoying life, newly married to a soldier who had also just returned from war, reports CBS News correspondent Don Teague.

"He was just funny, he was the ultimate prankster, very solid with the unit," Hester said.

But secretly her husband was a man in crisis, unable to readjust to life after war.

"Iraq changed him, he came back kind of an angry man," Hester said.

One month after their wedding, Richard Hester, 34, committed suicide.

"I always sympathized with him, empathized I guess would be the word, and understood and never blamed him," Hester said. "And now I'm just like you left two little girls without a dad, you left me with a mess to deal with why would you do this?"

It's a question the Army is struggling to answer as well.

The Army's suicide rate is now double the national average. There were 162 suicides in Army ranks in 2009 - a record. Fort Hood has had a record 20 confirmed or suspected suicides this year, four in just one week in September.

And while it's clear the stress of nine years of war contributes to the problem, it's not the only cause.
Army Reports Record Number of Suicides

There should be no excuse. To lose them after they survived combat when they should be back home safe is inexcusable.

But it gets worse. With all the talk about the military getting geared up to do something about the suicides, this is what is going on they are not making public.

U.S. sending traumatized troops back again and again to war
‘These soldiers are broken. The point is to avoid harm. For these guys, it’s too late’
By BRYANT FURLOW 11/11/10 12:16 PM


ALBUQUERQUE– Searching to describe his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms, Joseph Callan paused, his gaze momentarily distant.

“I see dead people,” he said, scoffing.

“In crowds, I’ll think, ‘that’s Howzer!’ or somebody else,” the former U.S. Marine Corps sergeant explained. “I know they’re dead. I saw them dead. But I feel compelled to confirm it’s not them, to see them from another angle. So I’m ducking through a crowd to get another look at them and it’s always just some random (person).”

Callan, now 32, joined the Marines when he was 18 years old, he told The Independent.

Surrounded by college students at an Albuquerque coffee shop near UNM, the great-grandson of a Navajo code talker and regional organizer for Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) ticked off the other manifestations of his three combat tours in Iraq.

“Self-medication, alcohol mostly,” he said. “Short temper — angry all the time. And not caring. Just not caring. This detachment. That’s why school didn’t work out for me, I think. I just didn’t care. …And I’m reckless. I ride my motorcycle faster than I should.”

“I never stop thinking about Iraq,” Callen said. “It’s a constant presence. It’s always there.”

Throughout the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, troops with combat-related traumatic brain injuries, called TBIs, or PTSD symptoms have routinely faced multiple deployments, Callan said.

“After the initial invasion, just about everybody I knew exhibited signs of PTSD – and we were all redeployed,” he recalled. “The Army and Marine Corps just needed warm bodies to stuff into slots. I’ve seen guys deploy with arms in casts. I saw (a Marine) deploy on crutches.”

Now, as a field organizer for IVAW, Callan wants to see an end to the practice of deploying troops with combat trauma. The organization’s “Operation Recovery” is a push to force the Pentagon to obey its own directive against deploying troops with PTSD, Callan said.

“These troops have a right to heal,” he said. “It’s inhumane and an awful practice to take somebody who is damaged and put them back in the environment that damaged them. They’re human beings. They break like regular humans.”

Some Marines who sought help were told they had to choose between “remaining deployable” and a “less than honorable discharge,” Callan said.
read more of this here
http://coloradoindependent.com/67268/u-s-sending-traumatized-troops-back-again-and-again-to-war

It is less than honorable to not take care of their wounds!