America's North Shore Journal

The United States Army received some disturbing information about its soldiers in January and February 2009. In January, 12 soldiers committed suicide and another 12 cases are pending a final determination. In February, 2 soldiers committed suicide and 16 are pending a determination.

These deaths follow a difficult 2008, in which 138 soldiers committed suicide and two cases remain pending.

For the first time in many years, it appears that the suicide rate for soldiers exceeds that of civilians in the same age range and mix of sexes. Civilian numbers have a two year lag so the military’s 2008 numbers do not have a civilian equivalent.

In the civilian population in 2005, the suicide rate was 19.5 per 100,000. The Army’s 2008 rate was 20.5 per 100,000.

The Army made a number of officers available for a Bloggers’ Roundtable today on this topic. General Peter W. Chiarelli, the Army Vice Chief of Staff, BG Colleen McGuire, Cols. Landry and Ritchie and other staff spent nearly an hour talking with us. The questioners were a mix of civilians, serving Army personnel and family members of service members.

The availability of General Chiarelli, the number two officer in the United States Army, makes it clear how seriously the Army takes this matter. The General was well educated on the topic, and was briefed on Wednesday on fifteen individual cases from all Army commands.

General Chiarelli stated that the key to intervention with troubled soldiers is leadership. He stated that leadership was absolutely critical.

Chiarelli said that the appropriate action when a soldier is troubled is not a referral but to take that soldier for help. Lowering the suicide rate will require a multi-disciplinary approach, breaking down each profession’s individual silo and going at it as a team approach. The Army is focused on this and is doing everything to drive the suicide numbers down.

BG McGuire has been given the lead in integrating and synchronizing across all disciplines to give leader tools to deal with individuals.

As part of the Army’s focus, a mandatory one day stand down has been ordered for all units between February 15 and March 15 for training. Chain teaching and sustainment training will then continue at all levels through July. In addition, the existing training in various NCO leadership courses is being reviewed and added to where necessary.

Every BCT [Brigade Combat Team] now has on staff a psychologist or social worker and a trained enlisted to provide services. Bases services are being reviewed with an emphasis on making access to help as easy as possible for military personnel as well as concerned family.

Over 50% of the soldiers committing suicide in 2008 had already sought mental health care. 60% of the soldiers had relationship issues compounded by either legal or financial issues.

About 1/3 of the suicides had never deployed, 1/3 were deployed and the remainder had returned from deployment. Multiple deployments seem to lower the suicide rate.

Col. Ritchie told us that analysis of the last five years’ soldiers’ suicides revealed 5.4 % with a PTSD diagnosis, 17% with substance abuse issues.

General Chiarelli saw one of the biggest problems still to be addressed as the stigma of needing or seeking mental health care. He was confident that officers and senior NCOs understood but he felt that junior enlisteds and junior NCOs needed to be reached to dispel that stigma.

He spent a few moments discussing the issues concerning the Reserve and National Guard. Their suicide numbers are fewer, but the geographic dispersion of the units and families gives their command a unique problem. It is more difficult for these units to reach out to both their personnel and their families. His Wednesday brief suggested that the Reserve component may have unemployment as an added issue with suicides though he cautioned that this was based on a very few cases.

All of the officers made it quite clear that the Army views soldier suicide as a very real problem. General Chiarelli expressed the Army’s commitment to making help available to troubled soldiers and their families.

The MP3 audio of this BRT can be found here.

A press kit released January 29, 2009 contains a number of items of interest. That PDF document can be found here.

The following articles from the Army’s website provide information on its work to prevent soldiers’ suicides.

• Suicide Prevention website
• Suicide prevention chain-teaching program includes new interactive video
• ARMY RELEASES FEBRUARY SUICIDE DATA; UPDATES PREVENTION EFFORTS

Listed below in the Table of Contents are a number of other articles published here concerning the Army, death rates and causes, and suicides in the Army.