Army suicides hit record in 2007
fficials say war not only cause foOr increaseBy Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Friday May 30, 2008 11:41:03 EDT
With 117 active-duty suicides in 2007 — the highest on record and an increase of 13 over 2006 — Army officials say combat has filled soldiers’ cups to the brim, and the stressors of deployment are making them overflow.
As of May 26, the Army has had 38 suicides in 2008, with 12 more cases pending confirmation.
At a May 29 Pentagon news conference, Army officials repeatedly emphasized that war is not, in and of itself, the primary reason for the increase in suicides and suicide attempts.
“You can’t really say it’s a cost of war,” said Lt. Col. Thomas Languirand, the Army’s chief of command policies and programs. “There are a lot of stressors that go into that.”
But Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatric consultant to the Army Surgeon General, said there is more to the story.
“The Army is very, very busy, and perhaps we haven’t taken care of each other as much as we’d like to,” she said, adding that the Army is working to encourage everyone, from the bottom up, to look for warning signs and pull a soldier back when he needs help.
Of those who committed suicide in 2007,
26 percent had never deployed. Another 24 percent had deployed once, while 7 percent had deployed more than once.
Another 43 percent killed themselves after returning home.
Twenty-six of the soldiers who committed suicide had seen direct combat. Of those, 17 had seen casualties, two had been injured, 16 had witnessed killing, 17 saw dead bodies in combat and seven did the killing themselves. Those figures are comparable to 2006.
Suicide attempts also went up last year, from 887 in 2006 to 934, with deployed soldiers accounting for 166 attempts.
Health care providers said 21 percent of the 934 attempts were related in some way to a deployment. In 2006, 254 soldiers who attempted suicide had served in Iraq or Afghanistan; that number rose to 290 in 2007.
The numbers were up in other categories as well. In 2006, 80 of the soldiers who attempted suicide had seen others killed in combat; the 2007 figure was 93. Also, in 2006, 39 of those who attempted suicide had killed others in combat; the figure for 2007 was 54.
In 2006, 27 soldiers killed themselves in Afghanistan or Iraq. In 2007, that number rose to 32. In 2006, only three had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, while in 2007, it rose slightly to seven.
While the cases of PTSD among soldiers who attempted suicide were low, Elspeth said from 15 percent to 20 percent have PTSD symptoms.
“Relatively few are diagnosed,” she said. “We are confident there were cases where there were PTSD symptoms, but we can’t capture that data.”
The 2007 suicide numbers include 33 mobilized National Guard soldiers and 20 mobilized Army Reserve troops.
Strain started to show in 2006, when the Army had 102 suicides — the highest number since 1990-91, when the force was much larger.
But Ritchie said there is more to war than “exposure to really horrifying and terrifying things”: being away from home, lack of privacy when soldiers bunk four to a room, and easy access to loaded weapons.
Despite the data from the new report, Ritchie said the Army’s Battlemind Training — a program for teaching soldiers what to expect, what’s a normal reaction and how better to react to combat before they leave for war — seems to be helping.
The report of the last Mental Health Advisory Team to visit Iraq found rates of anxiety and depression dipped from 20 percent for those without the training to 12 percent for those who had taken the training.
The Army active-duty suicide rate is 18.8 per 100,000 soldiers, including mobilized reservists. That compares with a civilian rate, adjusted for sex and age, that is roughly comparable at 19.5 per 100,000.
It’s difficult to compare those numbers, since soldiers are screened for mental health issues such as schizophrenia and severe depression as they enter service.
But that leads to another question, Ritchie said: In civilian suicides, psychiatric illness often plays a big role.
“That’s much more common than we have in the Army,” she said, where a suicide is more likely to follow a sudden loss, a humiliation, such as punishment, or a relationship problem.
“One of the most important risk factors is access to a loaded weapon,” she said.
Of soldiers who committed suicide, 30 percent used a military firearm and 33 percent used a nonmilitary firearm. Of those who committed suicide while deployed, 93 percent used a military firearm.
The Army gathered its data from Army Suicide Reporting Event forms, which include everything from age and sex to what soldiers had been talking to their buddies about before hurting themselves. All soldiers who were evacuated or hospitalized after hurting themselves were included in the data, Ritchie said.
She noted that the Army has 180 new mental health counselors working in clinics and hope to hire 275 more in the U.S.
“Is it enough?” Ritchie said. “Not yet.”
She said more work also needs to be done to reduce stigma about seeking mental health help and improve quality of care.
Languirand said a steering committee of general officers is looking more deeply at the problem, and the Army plans life-coping skills for soldiers and their families so they understand when to intervene and get help when they need it.
“Seeking help is a strength,” he said, “Keeping it all inside ... is a weakness.”
fficials say war not only cause foOr increaseBy Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Friday May 30, 2008 11:41:03 EDT
With 117 active-duty suicides in 2007 — the highest on record and an increase of 13 over 2006 — Army officials say combat has filled soldiers’ cups to the brim, and the stressors of deployment are making them overflow.
As of May 26, the Army has had 38 suicides in 2008, with 12 more cases pending confirmation.
At a May 29 Pentagon news conference, Army officials repeatedly emphasized that war is not, in and of itself, the primary reason for the increase in suicides and suicide attempts.
“You can’t really say it’s a cost of war,” said Lt. Col. Thomas Languirand, the Army’s chief of command policies and programs. “There are a lot of stressors that go into that.”
But Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatric consultant to the Army Surgeon General, said there is more to the story.
“The Army is very, very busy, and perhaps we haven’t taken care of each other as much as we’d like to,” she said, adding that the Army is working to encourage everyone, from the bottom up, to look for warning signs and pull a soldier back when he needs help.
Of those who committed suicide in 2007,
26 percent had never deployed. Another 24 percent had deployed once, while 7 percent had deployed more than once.
Another 43 percent killed themselves after returning home.
Twenty-six of the soldiers who committed suicide had seen direct combat. Of those, 17 had seen casualties, two had been injured, 16 had witnessed killing, 17 saw dead bodies in combat and seven did the killing themselves. Those figures are comparable to 2006.
Suicide attempts also went up last year, from 887 in 2006 to 934, with deployed soldiers accounting for 166 attempts.
Health care providers said 21 percent of the 934 attempts were related in some way to a deployment. In 2006, 254 soldiers who attempted suicide had served in Iraq or Afghanistan; that number rose to 290 in 2007.
The numbers were up in other categories as well. In 2006, 80 of the soldiers who attempted suicide had seen others killed in combat; the 2007 figure was 93. Also, in 2006, 39 of those who attempted suicide had killed others in combat; the figure for 2007 was 54.
In 2006, 27 soldiers killed themselves in Afghanistan or Iraq. In 2007, that number rose to 32. In 2006, only three had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, while in 2007, it rose slightly to seven.
While the cases of PTSD among soldiers who attempted suicide were low, Elspeth said from 15 percent to 20 percent have PTSD symptoms.
“Relatively few are diagnosed,” she said. “We are confident there were cases where there were PTSD symptoms, but we can’t capture that data.”
The 2007 suicide numbers include 33 mobilized National Guard soldiers and 20 mobilized Army Reserve troops.
Strain started to show in 2006, when the Army had 102 suicides — the highest number since 1990-91, when the force was much larger.
But Ritchie said there is more to war than “exposure to really horrifying and terrifying things”: being away from home, lack of privacy when soldiers bunk four to a room, and easy access to loaded weapons.
Despite the data from the new report, Ritchie said the Army’s Battlemind Training — a program for teaching soldiers what to expect, what’s a normal reaction and how better to react to combat before they leave for war — seems to be helping.
The report of the last Mental Health Advisory Team to visit Iraq found rates of anxiety and depression dipped from 20 percent for those without the training to 12 percent for those who had taken the training.
The Army active-duty suicide rate is 18.8 per 100,000 soldiers, including mobilized reservists. That compares with a civilian rate, adjusted for sex and age, that is roughly comparable at 19.5 per 100,000.
It’s difficult to compare those numbers, since soldiers are screened for mental health issues such as schizophrenia and severe depression as they enter service.
But that leads to another question, Ritchie said: In civilian suicides, psychiatric illness often plays a big role.
“That’s much more common than we have in the Army,” she said, where a suicide is more likely to follow a sudden loss, a humiliation, such as punishment, or a relationship problem.
“One of the most important risk factors is access to a loaded weapon,” she said.
Of soldiers who committed suicide, 30 percent used a military firearm and 33 percent used a nonmilitary firearm. Of those who committed suicide while deployed, 93 percent used a military firearm.
The Army gathered its data from Army Suicide Reporting Event forms, which include everything from age and sex to what soldiers had been talking to their buddies about before hurting themselves. All soldiers who were evacuated or hospitalized after hurting themselves were included in the data, Ritchie said.
She noted that the Army has 180 new mental health counselors working in clinics and hope to hire 275 more in the U.S.
“Is it enough?” Ritchie said. “Not yet.”
She said more work also needs to be done to reduce stigma about seeking mental health help and improve quality of care.
Languirand said a steering committee of general officers is looking more deeply at the problem, and the Army plans life-coping skills for soldiers and their families so they understand when to intervene and get help when they need it.
“Seeking help is a strength,” he said, “Keeping it all inside ... is a weakness.”