Suicide prevention program for military announced, more of the same

Asking the same questions to the same people provides the same wrong answers. They need to stop what they have been getting wrong, beginning with Resiliency Training, and start from scratch. Telling these men and women they can train their brains to be mentally tough translates into they are mentally weak if they end up with PTSD. When will they ever learn this?

Suicide prevention program for military announced
MEDICAL NEWS
By Geraldine A. Collier
CORRESPONDENT
November 11, 2012

Military service members, from left, Bill M. Davidson, suicide prevention program manager for the Massachusetts National Guard; Laura K. Lakin, resilience coordinator for the Guard; Chaplain Laurence J. Bazer and Paul Gregory Smith, assistant adjutant general-Army for the Massachusetts National Guard, attend a suicide prevention partnership meeting held last week at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.
(T and G Staff/TOM RETTIG)

WORCESTER — More members of the U.S. Armed Forces died by their own hand — usually with a gun — during the first nine months of this year than had their lives ended by the enemy in Afghanistan during the same period.

That startling suicide statistic has led to a realization by National Guard units across the country that more effort needs to be spent identifying Guard members who could be suicidal, and getting them the help they need before a tragedy occurs.

During the first nine months of 2012, there were 247 suspected suicides among Army active- and reserve-duty personnel, compared to 222 military deaths among active and reserve personnel from “hostile causes” as of Sept. 28.

Members of the Massachusetts National Guard are as much at risk as their counterparts across the nation, although the number of suicides among Massachusetts Guard members since 9-11 has remained in the single digits, according to Major Gen. L. Scott Rice, adjutant general of the Massachusetts National Guard.

“That’s still more than we have had in the past,” said Major Gen. Rice, although he did not have exact figures.

“Every single one is more,” he said. “Every single one is special, making it important that we figure out why, what and where and how do we make it better for the future.”
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