Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
February 1, 2008 The number has shot up since 2002. So far, steps taken have not had much effect.
By Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - New efforts aimed at stemming suicides in the Army are falling short. The service anticipates another jump in the annual number of soldiers who killed themselves or tried to, including in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.
According to preliminary figures released yesterday, 121 soldiers committed suicide in 2007, an increase of 20 percent over 2006. Of the total, 89 were described as confirmed suicides and the rest suspected.
The number who tried to commit suicide or deliberately injured themselves has jumped sixfold since 2002 - from 350 that year to 2,100 incidents last year.
Officials said some portion of that increase was likely due to use of a new electronic tracking system that is more thorough in capturing health data than the old system.
The increases come despite a host of efforts to improve the mental health of a force that has been stressed by lengthy and repeated deployments to the longer-than-expected war in Iraq, and the most deadly year yet in the six-year-old Afghan conflict.
"We have been perturbed by the rise despite all of our efforts," said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general.
Those efforts include more education programs, the hiring of more mental-health professionals, and the addition of screening programs launched after a succession of studies found the military's peacetime health-care system overwhelmed by troops coming home from the two wars.
Nearly a third of those who committed suicide - 34 - did so during deployments in Iraq. That compared with 27 in Iraq the previous year. Four were confirmed in Afghanistan, compared with three there in 2006.
The total of 121, if all are confirmed, would be more than double the 52 reported in 2001, before the Sept. 11 attacks prompted the Bush administration to launch its counterterrorism war. The toll was 87 in 2005 and 102 in 2006.
Officials said the rate of suicides per 100,000 active-duty soldiers had not yet been calculated for 2007.
The 2006 toll of 102 translated to a rate of 17.5 per 100,000, the highest since the Army started counting in 1980, officials said.
Ritchie said yesterday, as she did last year, that officials were finding that failed personal relationships were the main motive for the suicides, followed by legal and financial problems and job-related difficulties.
Long and repeated tours of duty away from home contribute significantly in that they weigh heavily on family relations and compound the other problems, officials said.
"People don't tend to suicide as a direct result of combat," Ritchie said. "But the frequent deployments strain relationships. And strained relations and divorce are definitely related to increased suicide."
February 1, 2008 The number has shot up since 2002. So far, steps taken have not had much effect.
By Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - New efforts aimed at stemming suicides in the Army are falling short. The service anticipates another jump in the annual number of soldiers who killed themselves or tried to, including in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.
According to preliminary figures released yesterday, 121 soldiers committed suicide in 2007, an increase of 20 percent over 2006. Of the total, 89 were described as confirmed suicides and the rest suspected.
The number who tried to commit suicide or deliberately injured themselves has jumped sixfold since 2002 - from 350 that year to 2,100 incidents last year.
Officials said some portion of that increase was likely due to use of a new electronic tracking system that is more thorough in capturing health data than the old system.
The increases come despite a host of efforts to improve the mental health of a force that has been stressed by lengthy and repeated deployments to the longer-than-expected war in Iraq, and the most deadly year yet in the six-year-old Afghan conflict.
"We have been perturbed by the rise despite all of our efforts," said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general.
Those efforts include more education programs, the hiring of more mental-health professionals, and the addition of screening programs launched after a succession of studies found the military's peacetime health-care system overwhelmed by troops coming home from the two wars.
Nearly a third of those who committed suicide - 34 - did so during deployments in Iraq. That compared with 27 in Iraq the previous year. Four were confirmed in Afghanistan, compared with three there in 2006.
The total of 121, if all are confirmed, would be more than double the 52 reported in 2001, before the Sept. 11 attacks prompted the Bush administration to launch its counterterrorism war. The toll was 87 in 2005 and 102 in 2006.
Officials said the rate of suicides per 100,000 active-duty soldiers had not yet been calculated for 2007.
The 2006 toll of 102 translated to a rate of 17.5 per 100,000, the highest since the Army started counting in 1980, officials said.
Ritchie said yesterday, as she did last year, that officials were finding that failed personal relationships were the main motive for the suicides, followed by legal and financial problems and job-related difficulties.
Long and repeated tours of duty away from home contribute significantly in that they weigh heavily on family relations and compound the other problems, officials said.
"People don't tend to suicide as a direct result of combat," Ritchie said. "But the frequent deployments strain relationships. And strained relations and divorce are definitely related to increased suicide."