Army suicides reach all-time high

Suicides climb 5 straight Army Counseling Fights Soldier PTSD and Rising Suicides

Neither the U.S. military nor the American public would tolerate a conflict in which U.S. losses mounted for five straight years. Yet, that’s what’s happening in the Army’s battle with suicides. The recently released figure for November show that 12 soldiers are suspected of taking their own lives, bringing to 147 the total suicides for 2009, the highest since the Army began keeping track in 1980. Last year the Army had 140 suicides.

Although Army officials don’t blame the spike on repeated deployments to war zones, evidence is mounting to the contrary. Only about a third of Army suicides happen in war zones, officials note, and another third are among personnel who had never deployed. But that means two-thirds of Army suicides have deployed, many returning home with mental scars that make them prone to take their own lives, the Army’s No. 2 officer said last week. (See pictures of an Army town’s struggle with PTSD.)

“Soldiers who are suffering from posttraumatic stress are six times more likely to commit suicide than those that are not,” General Peter Chiarelli told the House Armed Services Committee last Thursday. “The greatest single debilitating injury of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is posttraumatic stress.” Nearly 1 in 5 soldiers — more than 300,000 — comes home from the wars reporting symptoms of PTSD. Army officials also acknowledge that substance abuse, fueled by repeated combat tours, and a war-created shortage of mental-health professionals, contribute to mental ills that can lead to suicide.

Full Story Army Counseling Fights Soldier PTSD and Rising Suicides – TIME.