In suicides, Army faces steepest challenge
Army Times
By Michelle Tan
Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Sep 25, 2012
Facing an enemy it can’t seem to defeat, the Army continues to lose more soldiers to suicide than to combat in Afghanistan.
So far this year, the Army has reported 212 suspected suicides — 132 active-duty soldiers and 80 National Guard or Army Reserve soldiers who were not on active duty when they died.
During the same time period, January through August, the Army lost 171 soldiers in Afghanistan. In FY2011 there were more than 1,000 known suicide attempts.
Army leaders don’t know why the service is seeing a spike in 2012, Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno told Army Times.
The Army reported 28 active-duty soldier suicides in July, a record high monthly total.
“Why has it spiked this year? Is it because we’re coming down off the number of deployments? Does it have to do with soldiers who had existing problems, problems that weren’t taken care of? We don’t know,” he said. “It’s something that we keep trying to figure out, but we don’t know the answer yet.”
• 75 percent of those who attempted suicide were seen somewhere in the outpatient health care system within 30 days before their suicide attempt.
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I know I'm starting to sound just like them when I repeat and repeat what the problem is, so I won't do it here. Watch my videos and you'll see it. Read my book and you'll know it. Read this blog and you'll know that all of this has been predicted year after year since 2001!
I still have to tell parents after they buried a son or daughter after suicide why it happened. They work hard to understand something they should have known all along but the military does a shitty job of telling them.
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