Army suicides still rising

Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009 | 2:06 a.m.

What will it take to reduce the number of U.S. soldiers who commit suicide?

The Army has been asking this question since suicides began spiking in 2004 and has yet to discover an answer, although it must be given credit for attempting to under trying circumstances.

It has introduced training programs to help soldiers recognize abnormal stress welling up in their fellow soldiers. It has updated its suicide prevention manual, which provides guidance for soldiers and leaders stateside as well as those deployed to combat zones.

It has hired mental health professionals to improve screenings of soldiers before and after — and even during — their deployments. It has taken a multimedia approach to ensure guidance is available to all soldiers and their families. It has hired social workers and marriage counselors.

Yet none of these approaches is lessening the rate of suicide, which is now the highest since 1980, when the military first began tracking suicides within its ranks.

Suicides among active-duty soldiers reached 102 in 2006 and 115 in 2007. The Pentagon announced Thursday that at least 128 active-duty soldiers took their own lives in 2008. The final count could be higher because some soldiers’ deaths are still being investigated.

The Associated Press reported that Army officers have said troops are under unprecedented stress because of long and repeated tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said at Thursday’s announcement, “There is no doubt in my mind that stress is a factor.”

AP also noted that the Army health care system is overwhelmed in trying to tend to soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress and other mental health problems while tending to soldiers with physical wounds.

The Army is fighting suicides with the resources it has been given. Now that President Barack Obama is commander in chief, we hope that help will arrive from above. The Pentagon should find a way to give soldiers more time between combat deployments, and should find a way to create a military health care system that is actually staffed to meet the need.