Military is trying to figure out why there is a surge in suicides

In 2008, 140 soldiers on active duty took their own lives, continuing a trend in which the number of suicides has increased more than 60 percent since 2003, surpassing the rate for the general U.S. population.

To deal with the problem, the Army has added to the ranks of mental health and substance abuse counselors. The service also required all units to cease operations for two to four hours to talk about suicide prevention in February and March.

Chiarelli's monthly meetings are the Army's way of sleuthing out patterns and identifying new policies to deal with the trend.

The answer to this puzzling problem is found within the same article. To help, I've bolded it.:

The Army's biggest challenge is that its volunteer force is in uncharted territory. Many soldiers are now in the midst of their third or fourth combat tour, and Army surveys show that mental health deteriorates with each one. Senior Army officials said they are focusing more resources, including extra mental health counselors, where troops are returning from multiple deployments. This year, Fort Campbell, Ky., which is home to the frequently deployed 101st Airborne Division, has had 14 suicides.

"We probably don't know how many mental health care providers we need after eight years of war and three and four deployments," Chiarelli said.

Um... guys. The military is broken. Soldiers are people and they are used up and tired. You can't have an Eternal War on a Noun and expect only a small percentage of the American population to fight it ... forever. You can't extend tours, use stop-loss, badger and harass soldiers into reenlisting, lie to get potential recruits to sign up, ignore signs of mental stress and ptsd, provide crappy veteran's care and not have a backlash.

How about this? Stop the wars. Bring the soldiers home. Focus the attentions of the mental health care providers on our troops at home who will need assistance in fitting back into society. It just might work!

Update: Remembered this post a little more than a year ago about the estimate of attempted suicides.... 12,000.

The backdoor draft

Bush's legacy: Use them up and throw them out. In other words, send the soldiers, wounded or not, back to Iraq until they die:

Because of Bush's abusive stop-loss policy, Jason had been sent into an unwanted third tour of duty. He was a father of three and could not afford to lose his pension. Some "volunteer Army".

During his three 15-month tours in Iraq, exposure to roadside bombs and other job-related injuries caused Jason to be hospitalized several times for concussion and internal bleeding and other injuries. Recently, Jason's condition was such that the Department of Defense flew him from Iraq to Dover Air Force Base for surgery. He was released from the hospital into the loving arms of the government who sent him directly back into Iraq. He was put on active duty while he was still on a liquid diet, unable to eat solid food because of a throat hemorrhage due to a botched surgery at a military hospital.

To date all the family has heard from the Army is that Jason variously died "in his sleep" and "in his bunk" and "in his quarters" and my favorite "sleep apnea complicated by smoking cigarettes," in other words, natural causes.

After his second tour Jason returned home with severe mental and physical issues. He was certainly in no condition to be pressed into a third tour. He wanted out of the army. But Jason was a victim of the liar's back-door draft.

The administration knows the war could not continue if the draft was reinstated, hence the criminally deceptive stop-loss program. At all costs, the administration wants to avoid Vietnam-scale student protests. In this case the cost fell on Jason, whose death will not be included as a war casualty. Jason Dene will not be buried at Arlington National Cemetery; he will just sort of ... disappear quietly (they hope).

Because Jason was Mia Farrow's nephew, I hope the manner of his death does not 'disappear' but sticks like a fish bone in the craw of the Bush cabal. They have never given a shit about the soldiers. Supporting the troops means making them fight in Iraq forever. If they die rather than survive to be a burden on our broken veteran's health system, it will be cheaper that way.

Time to reuse this picture:

Things are going swimmingly

In Iraq, says Dick Cheney:

The Vice President today, in a Mississippi radio interview with an obviously friendly host:

INTERVIEWER: . . . You know, I look at this, and every once in a while, we'll see a story, Mr. Vice President, things like an amusement park opens in Iraq or in Baghdad, which is totally counter to what we're hearing over here, as far as the marketplaces being open, the schools, and things such as that. But I saw a story several weeks ago about an amusement center maybe over there, and I'm thinking this is not what you get in today's media.

VICE PRESIDENT: No, that's true. It's -- what gets covered obviously is bad news. That's -- you know, if everything is going swimmingly, then that's not news, so it doesn't get the kind of attention.

Swimmingly just for you, Dick.


Two-year-old Ali Hussein is pulled from the rubble of his
family’s home in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad,
Iraq, April 29, 2008. (Karim Kadim/AP photo)

And:

WASHINGTON -- The number of soldiers forced to remain in the Army involuntarily under the military's controversial "stop-loss" program has risen sharply since the Pentagon extended combat tours last year, officials said Thursday.

[snip]

However, many soldiers subjected to the stop-loss policy consider it a backdoor draft. Critics argue that once soldiers have completed the enlistment period they agreed to, they should be allowed to return home. The involuntary retention program is so unpopular that it helped inspire a recent movie called "Stop-Loss."

The number of soldiers held in the Army under the stop-loss program reached a high in March 2005 of 15,758. That number steadily declined through May 2007, when it hit 8,540. But since then, the number of soldiers subjected to stop-loss orders began to increase again, reaching 12,235 in March 2008.

And: OEF/OIF Post-Combat Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths:

The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.

Because a barrel of crude has shot past $126?

Pandagon gets an email from a soldier

Which mentions a word I've been using to describe the stop-loss program: Slavery.

I am a soldier serving at Fort Hood. I signed up in 2003 for a 5 year contract (I should ETS on 1/15/08). I joined at 32 years old to serve my country. I have been to Iraq twice already and was looking forward to start terminal leave in Dec of 2007.

Now after my unit returned we were told our company was being moved and that all the soldiers had to go to another company. This new company has not deployed in over a year so on paper it looks like we have been home longer.

I asked not to be sent here since I knew I would be stop lossed. Basically the answer was no and too bad.

You see they no longer care about soldiers serving honorably and doing right by us. What they are doing is finding a loophole to extend soldiers in their contracts for a year or more. This in turn makes it look like the army is not short of soldiers.

Let me give you the truth. The army is scrambling to find soldiers ad morale is getting worse. Not as much due to the deployments (that’s part of it) but also to the knowledge that when our time comes the army can keep us as long as they want.

When I joined the stop loss was not explained to me. Had it been I would never have signed. What they are doing is a form of slavery that we the soldiers can do nothing about. If they needed to stay so badly they could ask me to extend and as a patriot I probably would have but to be forced to with threat of jail and the loss of my freedom then I have no choice.

Finally, I should note that I have never had any discipline problems and even volunteered for my second deployment becuase the company I went with needed soldiers. While in Iraq I served honorably and have seen combat on several occasions. I even volunteered to go in January so I would not be stop lossed but was denied.

The command cares little for the soldiers here and has a policy in place that is wrong in a supposedly volunteer army.

Update: Reminds me to bring up this journal which was written by a soldier while in Afghanistan and then at home.