News and Politics | March 07, 2009 | 26 comments

US Soldier Sucides

source: http://story.albuquerqueexpress.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/c08dd24cec417021/id/474921/cs/1/

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U.S. Army establishes suicide task force
Albuquerque Express
Friday 6th March, 2009


The U.S. Army has created a suicide prevention task force as part of its month-long “stand-down” to address suicides among soldiers, the service’s vice chief of staff said Friday.

Maj. Gen. Colleen McGuire, the Army’s director of senior leader development, has been selected to head up the task force, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli told military bloggers and online journalists at a Blogger’s Roundtable hosted by the Defense Media Activity.

“Suicide is a multi-dimensional problem and, as such, will take a multi-disciplinary approach to dealing with it,” Chiarelli said.

In keeping with the complexity of the problem, the task force will have members from a range of staff sections and functional areas. “My charter is to look across all disciplines so commanders can have a menu of tools and training programs and experts and know how to best deploy them,” McGuire said.
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26 comments // US Soldier Sucides

  • CalgarC
  • dariusvons
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
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    • WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Every day, five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves. Before the Iraq war began, that figure was less than one suicide attempt a day.

      The dramatic increase is revealed in new U.S. Army figures, which show 2,100 soldiers tried to commit suicide in 2007.

      "Suicide attempts are rising and have risen over the last five years," said Col. Elspeth Cameron-Ritchie, an Army psychiatrist.

      Concern over the rate of suicide attempts prompted Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, to introduce legislation Thursday to improve the military's suicide-prevention programs.

      "Our troops and their families are under unprecedented levels of stress due to the pace and frequency of more than five years of deployments," Webb said in a written statement. Watch CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre on the reasons for the increase in suicides »

      Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, took to the Senate floor Thursday, urging more help for military members, especially for those returning from war.

      "Our brave service members who face deployment after deployment without the rest, recovery and treatment they need are at the breaking point," Murray said.

      She said Congress has given "hundreds of millions of dollars" to the military to improve its ability to provide mental health treatment, but said it will take more than money to resolve the problem.

      "It takes leadership and it takes a change in the culture of war," she said. She said some soldiers had reported receiving nothing more than an 800 number to call for help.

      "Many soldiers need a real person to talk to," she said. "And they need psychiatrists and they need psychologists."

      According to Army statistics, the incidence of U.S. Army soldiers attempting suicide or inflicting injuries on themselves has skyrocketed in the nearly five years since the start of the Iraq war.

      Last year's 2,100 attempted suicides -- an average of more than 5 per day -- compares with about 350 suicide attempts in 2002, the year before the war in Iraq began, according to the Army.

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      The figures also show the number of suicides by active-duty troops in 2007 may reach an all-time high when the statistics are finalized in March, Army officials said.

      The Army lists 89 soldier deaths in 2007 as suicides and is investigating 32 more as possible suicides. Suicide rates already were up in 2006 with 102 deaths, compared with 87 in 2005.

      Cameron-Ritchie, the Army psychiatrist, said suicide attempts are usually related to problems with intimate relationships, but they are also related to problems with work, finances and the law.

      "The really tough area here is stigma. We know that soldiers don't want to go seek care. They're tough, they're strong, they don't want to go see a behavioral health-care provider," Cameron-Ritchie said.

      Multiple deployments and long deployments appear to exact a toll on relationships, thereby boosting the number of suicide attempts, she said.

      Traditionally, the suicide rate among military members has been lower than age- and gender-matched civilians. But in recent years the rate has crept up from 12 per 100,000 among the military to 17.5 per 100,000 in 2006, she said. That's still less than the civilian figure of about 20 per 100,000, she said.

      The "typical" soldier who commits suicide is a member of an infantry unit who uses a firearm to carry out the act, according to the Army.

      Post-traumatic stress disorder also may be a factor in suicide attempts, Cameron-Ritchie said, because it can result in broken relationships and often leads to drug and alcohol abuse.

    • 3 years ago
  • Samiammi
    • 0
      Samiammi  
    • Highr0ller:

      hahahahha, how many non-soldier deaths were related to suicide in the US? That's an important number required for a comparison. Because if there is a lower percentage in the military then there is in the general population, you're suggesting everyone enlists - Ha! That’s called a genetic fallacy.

      Take that Bias agenda!

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
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      Highr0ller [removed]  

    • The veterans of Vietnam faced exactly the same response when they came home.

      Sadly its the poor man who gets sent to fight, while his elite intellectual superiors get to decide which wars he must fight.

      We need to kick out the elites..................and prosecute Bush and Cheney.

    • 3 years ago
  • carmalite
    • 0
      carmalite  
    • Highr0ller:

      HighrOller, exactly. I have a convict Bush and Cheney hat someone sent to me.
      I would like to see these chickenhawks who ran from Nam in jail for destroying the economy of this country and causing so many deaths.

    • 3 years ago
  • Samiammi
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      Samiammi  
    • Highr0ller:

      You're both ridiculous and really don't know what you're talking about. Bush made a lot of mistakes, but how did it affect our country - it was 680 billion $ to people who do nothing but pay taxes. O’Bama has spent 2 trillion $ in just two months as president. Not to mention, a war effort increases production, while going green puts thousands of people out of business. Did Bush make new enemies? - No, people who were already our enemy's spoke out against the US. Soldiers death toll - there were less than any other war on our side to date. So why do soldiers commit suicide? - its not due to the military, they are successful - its due to idiots back home who try and convince them they're murderers. Bush did some stupid things, and he should have been impeached - not due to bad decisions though - simply due to his all-time low approval rating - It doesn't make sense to have a country run by someone no one wants in office. You know what's more dangerous though? - having a country run by someone who everyone likes - because he has power to do whatever he wants - like spent 2 trillion dollars on so much bullshit no one can even account for where the money has gone – if you can, please post it in a future blog – I would greatly appreciate not feeling like I’ve been robbed. If not, don’t blindly support O’Bama simply because he appears to be better than Bush – he may be, but he hasn’t been in office long enough to tell, and he’s already spent so many government programs that we will not see a return on – health care doesn’t provide jobs and only requires more money to establish, going green puts thousands out of the job, bailing out car companies who outsource their work doesn’t provide jobs, Closing prisons… doesn’t even make sense – what do you do with the prisoners??? Let them go? Ha! Close civilian prisons first then because the criminals are much less dangerous! Charles Manson ran a cult, and even had someone try to assassinate the president! but even he never flew a plane into a building! We went to war over the casualties the people in these prisons were striving to inflict. Just don’t blindly follow O’Bama. He may be right – but he may be wrong and if he is wrong, blind followers will be doing much more harm to our nation then our soldiers in Iraq ever could.

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
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      Highr0ller [removed]  
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    • This is our fate living in the empire. We must hold ourselves and each other accountable, while knowing that the powerful systems in place are not going to change overnight simply because we have good arguments and are well-intentioned. We must ask ourselves why we don’t do more, while recognizing that none of us can ever do enough. We must be harsh on ourselves and each other, while retaining a loving connection to self and others, for without that love there is no hope.

      People often say this kind of individual and collective self-assessment is too hard, too depressing. Perhaps, but it is the path we must walk if we wish to hold onto our humanity. As Heschel put it, “the prophets endure and can only be ignored at the risk of our own despair.”2 To contemplate these harsh realities is not to give in to despair, but to make it possible to resist.

      If we wish to find our prophetic voice, we must have the courage to speak about the crimes of our leaders and also look at ourselves honestly in the mirror. That requires not just courage but humility. It is in that balance of a righteous anger and rigorous self-reflection that we find not just the strength to go on fighting but also the reason to go on living.

      A version of this essay was delivered as a sermon to the Henry David Thoreau Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Bend County, Texas, August 3, 2008.

    • 3 years ago
  • carmalite
    • 0
      carmalite  

    • I feel so much empathy for these soldiers and their families. We need top rate care for them and they should not wait to see a Clinicl psychologist for help like so many have had to do.

    • 3 years ago
  • clayjj05
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      clayjj05 [removed]  

    • I went to a two hour suicide preventiion thing today aimed at helping ptsd soldiers seek help.

      AS unclecharlie said, alot of out brothers and sisters come back from the battlefield two and three times. Not only did they see some fucked up shit, but america is often a disapointment to come back to. After fighting for your life on a daily basis, and coming back to assholes like smallgod its tough. Many men also avoid getting help because they think its going to ruin their army career. The chain of command is often the last place you want to go when you are feeling suicidal.

    • 3 years ago
  • smallgod
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      smallgod  
    • clayjj05:

      Sorry, asshole, I only donate a lot of my earned income to the veterans. I personally respect them completely. I was only pointing out that many people feel that way. Not myself personally. It is the sentiment that upsets you, not me personally. You don't even know me or what I do with my money.

    • 3 years ago
  • Samiammi
    • 0
      Samiammi  
    • clayjj05:

      Money isn't the issue - its right to life. If you want to help soldiers, stop condemning them. They can save an entire country. If they weren't there, we have no country. It really is that simple. If you think money plays such a big part in it - try to pay off someone robbing you. Give them 50$ to leave - I'd bet you anything they take the
      50$, and then continue robbing you. Soldiers protect you, money feeds you - don't get the two confused. They are doing you a service you can't possibly repay, your support is worth much more than money in that respect.

    • 3 years ago
  • unclecharlie
    • 0
      unclecharlie  

    • Yeah- well this is one area that non-veterans don't have a clue. smallgod, I'm talking to you! They're killing a lot of Taliban too. It is the veterans, smallgod, that gave you the right to spout off like that without fearing you might wind up doing a long prison sentence for "dissent."
      The only Good Taliban is a dead Taliban. (Ok, now, every leftist whack-job will crawl out of the wordwork at this point rushing to their defense.) The Taliban have killed infinitely more people than soldiers ever did- not just killed- murdered! Chopping off heads, killing anyone who doesn't believe what they do! And yet brains of a Taliban look just like the brains of an innocent civilian when dead.
      This is yet another reason why suicides are so prevalent in our military- the only real support is in the Veterans Administration- afterwards. But for too many, that's too late. In war conditions- it's like "Take 2 aspirin, you'll feel better!"

    • 3 years ago
  • smallgod
    • 0
      smallgod  
    • unclecharlie:

      Spout off, unclecharlie? Sorry, I wasn't in the military, but my family has been, and they all came back with huge problems. Like everyone's family members who have been there. I wasn't shitting on your army, asshole, I was simply saying that it's hard for them because they can't distinguish between combatant and non combatant troops and therefore end up killing a lot of innocents. Sorry you're so testy on the subject. I wasn't supporting the Taliban either, asshole, as they are a militant student organization that is terrorizing good people (the...innocents...I was talking about earlier). Read what people say before you patronize them and assume you know what they're going to say.

    • 3 years ago
  • carmalite
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
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    • Obama's Backsliding on Torture

      After the president's swift move to close Guantánamo, I thought Binyam Mohamed would soon be free. I fear we were deceived

      By Cori Crider

      Not long ago, I marched across the gravel of Guantánamo Bay's Camp Echo with two overstuffed grocery sacks and tramped up the stairs of the hut where a prisoner sat, shackled and waiting. A guard swung open the grate. I went in, heaved the bags on the table, and greeted Binyam Mohamed with all the brightness I could muster.
      Not that I expected Binyam, the most abused of Reprieve's thirty clients in Gitmo, to show much jubilation. It is hard to buoy a man who has experienced years of physical and psychological torture. Under the classification rules, I'm not allowed to write a word that Binyam said in reply. I can say that when I bade him farewell and promised to catch him on the outside, he shrugged and smiled a sardonic smile. And perhaps just a spark of hope in his eyes.

      As I glanced back at him in a jumpsuit and chains, I remembered that this man was broken in our name, along with countless others. I had been sure Binyam was to be the first man released by the Obama administration. Yet the government that ruined Binyam's life seems to be well into the business of forgetting.

      President Obama inherited a human rights debacle of epic proportions. One of his earliest acts, during his very first hours in office, was to signal a change of policy by ordering the closure of Guantánamo. But the administration's current response now seems to have reverted to the secretive policies of the Bush administration, flouting the principles of open government that he had pledged to revive.

      Yet, not once has the US government admitted where it took Binyam Moha.........................

    • 3 years ago
  • Samiammi
    • 0
      Samiammi  
    • Highr0ller:

      Huh, terrorists being taken prisoner? If you support terrorists in any way, you may as well be a terrorist yourself. If he didn't have information, I would have expected him to have been shot - like we do with people we are at war with! You know damn well what Jihad is, they stop at nothing until we're dead - and if he hadn’t put himself in a threatening position to us, he wouldn't be in prison in the first place. He’s not a bank robber, he’s a damn terrorist. He doesn’t attack an individual, he attacks a country.

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
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    • CIA Destroyed 12 Harsh Interrogation Torture Tapes
      By DEVLIN BARRETT
      The CIA destroyed a dozen videotapes of harsh interrogations torture of terror suspects, according to documents filed Friday in a lawsuit over the government's treatment of detainees. The 12 tapes were part of a larger collection of 92 videotapes of terror suspects that the CIA destroyed. The extent of the tape destruction was disclosed through a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the government.

      =======================

      That probe is now winding down, and government lawyers signaled earlier this week that they would begin providing some of the answers the ACLU had been seeking.

      Government lawyers say they will provide a further accounting of other records relating to the tapes later this month.

      The documents offered Friday were mostly redacted. A list of the tapes is almost completely blacked out.

      ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh criticized the government for "needlessly withholding information about these tapes from the public, despite the fact that the CIAs use of torture — including — is no secret."

      In his first week as president, Barack Obama signed an order prohibiting the CIA from using coercive interrogation techniques that already are banned by the Pentagon. He also ordered the closing of secret CIA "black site" prisons abroad where terror suspects have been held.

    • 3 years ago
  • clayjj05
  • Samiammi
    • 0
      Samiammi  
    • Highr0ller:

      Guess who was also tortured... McCain - not in the US though... War is a worldwide phenomenon, and the actions of war can not be condemned in a civilian court - or you have suicides. People who protect our country and feel like they're doing something wrong - Maybe O'Bama will disband the military for you, then you can see what happens when we're no longer killing.

      Here's an interesting fact for you - all time lowest crime in the history of the world - It was found in Vlad the Impailer’s city of Romania - people were afraid of the horrible fate that awaited them had they done anything wrong. Now, apply that to terrorists - if you scare the hell out of them, will they be as willing to fly planes into buildings? Maybe torture isn't the answer - If you catch a known terrorist in an airport in the US, and you chop his hands off - how's he going to steal a plane without hands? - you'd be saving thousands of lives, and people like yourself who think, "no more prisons" is a solution would be satisfied.

    • 3 years ago
  • smallgod
    • 0
      smallgod  

    • You can only kill so many innocent men, women, and children before you have the need to kill yourself. This war is so depressing because we have veterans coming home who aren't treated as heroes because, really, how can you be a hero in this war?

    • 3 years ago
  • clayjj05
    • 0
      clayjj05 [removed]  
    • smallgod:

      who the fuck are you to say that soldiers kill innocent people. The stress of the battle field weighs heavily on these men. I went to a two hour suicide prevention thing today over ptsd and we heard a story from a sfc who saw three children blown up by the terrorist. The reason these children were in the car was to get through a check point with out being fully checked. He almost killed himself from seeing these things. Not from killing any innocent civilains. People like you need to think before you spealk about shit yuou have no idea about.

    • 3 years ago
  • mendokusai
    • 0
      mendokusai  
    • smallgod:

      riiiiight becuz all america does is send its soldiers with planes tanks n guns to *witness* people dyin

      so u know someone who saw somethin disturbing n he cudnt hack it tuff shit but dont put on a face that soldiers are innocent bystanders of what goes on around them or ur just as ignorant as the leaders who send ur ass over there to do their fightin for them

      anybody who believes that shit was crazy on their own before they ever even got involved

    • 3 years ago
  • smallgod
    • 0
      smallgod  
    • smallgod:

      It's not me saying it, I'm stating that that point of view exists. Like I said....I donate....a lot of money.....to veterans. It's not that I view or think people should view that people aren't heroes, it happened in WW2 that our soldiers killed men women and children. It's the government's fault for not really showing us our war and not taking care of the people once they get home. We should end this war and use the money to aid all the wounded and psychologically hurt vets before we even start touching America's problems and peoples' lives here.

    • 3 years ago
  • Samiammi
    • 0
      Samiammi  
    • smallgod:

      Yeah, this was a bad post. You know why soldiers commit suicide? - Its the same reason everyone else does. They're made to feel like they're doing something wrong, like they're insignificant, or like... they're murderers. When you don't respect the work of your army, and people ridicule soldiers for doing what they do, you weaken the damn country. If you have an army that’s afraid to kill - or regrets it - then you may are inviting invasion. Plato said the wisest man could only be a soldier, because only they know what's really at stake - so when you condemn them, your ignorance has more weight than wisdom in our society.

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  

    • “Unfortunately, suicide is touching every segment of our force -- active, reserve and National Guard, officer and enlisted, deployed and non-deployed, and yet-to-be-deployed,” Chiarelli said.

      In the last fiscal year, 138 soldiers committed suicide, Chiarelli said, and five additional cases are being reviewed as possible suicides. In January, 12 soldiers committed suicide with another 12 cases under review. In February, two soldiers committed suicide and another 16 cases are being reviewed.

      “As a soldier and a leader, I’m deeply saddened every time a soldier loses his or her life,” Chiarelli said, “but it’s especially troubling when a soldier commits suicide.”

      About a third of those soldiers were deployed, Chiarelli said. Another third had returned from a deployment, and the last third had never deployed.

      “The rational person might think, the more deployments, the more likely you are to commit suicide,” Chiarelli said. “But we saw just the opposite.”

      “A certain resiliency” seems to grow in soldiers that have completed multiple deployments, he said.

      Chiarelli said the task force will look across multiple disciplines – from personnel to

    • 3 years ago
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