A record number of U.S. soldiers killed themselves last year and the statistics compiled so far for this year show that another tragic record is possibly in the making.
The Army, the only branch of the military that keeps annual suicide statistics, said last week that 115 soldiers were confirmed to have committed suicide in 2007. Another two soldiers are suspected to have committed suicide, but their deaths are still under investigation.
As of early last week, the Army’s suicide toll for this year was 38 confirmed and 12 suspected. If that rate continues, 2008 will be the fifth year in a row that Army suicides have reached a record high.
Why is this happening?
Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatric consultant to the Army surgeon general, cited some contributing factors during an interview with the Associated Press.
“Mainly the longtime and multiple deployments away from home, exposure to really terrifying and horrifying things, the easy availability of loaded weapons and a force that is very, very busy right now,” she said.
She added that those pressures are especially intense for soldiers who are “having difficulties anyway.” That would comport with something the Army found in analyzing the suicides: Fifty percent of the soldiers who killed themselves had recently suffered a failed relationship with a spouse, girlfriend or other loved one.
Counseling soldiers about their personal lives is a duty of Army chaplains, and making them more available would be an obvious answer. But the chaplains, soldiers themselves, are exhausted and dealing with mental health issues, too, with many in their ranks suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other stress problems, according to a New York Times story last week.
Another answer, then, is needed, and we believe a House bill — the Armed Forces Suicide Prevention Act — co-sponsored by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., would help. It would expand existing mental health programs in the military and require that all branches follow a comprehensive suicide-prevention strategy.
“We have a law requiring ... a suicide prevention program for America’s veterans and there is absolutely no reason we should not do the same (for active duty service members),” Berkley said Thursday.
Congress should approve this bill. All of our troops need a life-affirming place to turn when dealing with mental anguish.
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