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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Majority of Soldiers Say Iraq Morale Low |
| 2005-07-20 |
| Ahh yes, yet another Associated Press article that is obviously biased.WASHINGTON - A majority of U.S. soldiers in Iraq say morale is low, according to an Army report that finds psychological stress is weighing particularly heavily on National Guard and Reserve troops. Still, soldiers' mental health has improved from the early months of the insurgency, and suicides have declined sharply, the report said. Also, substantially fewer soldiers had to be evacuated from Iraq for mental health problems last year. The Army sent a team of mental health specialists to Iraq and Kuwait late last summer to assess conditions and measure progress in implementing programs designed to fix mental health problems discovered during a similar survey of troops a year earlier. Its report, dated Jan. 30, 2005, was released Wednesday. The initial inquiry was triggered in part by an unusual surge in suicides among soldiers in Iraq in July 2003. Wednesday's report said the number of suicides in Iraq and Kuwait declined from 24 in 2003 to nine last year. A suicide prevention program was begun for soldiers in Iraq at the recommendation of the 2003 assessment team. The overall assessment said 13 percent of soldiers in the most recent study screened positive for a mental health problem compared with 18 percent a year earlier. Symptoms of acute or post-traumatic stress remained the top mental health problem, affecting at least 10 percent of all soldiers checked in the latest survey. In the anonymous survey, 17 percent of soldiers said they had experienced moderate or severe stress or problems with alcohol, emotions or their families. That compares with 23 percent a year earlier. The report said reasons for the improvement in mental health are not clear. Among possible explanations: less frequent and less intense combat, more comforts like air conditioning, wider access to mental health services and improved training in handling the stresses associated with deployments and combat. National Guard and Reserve soldiers who serve in transportation and support units suffered more than others from depression, anxiety and other indications of acute psychological stress, the report said. These soldiers have often been targets of the insurgents' lethal ambushes and roadside bombs, although the report said they had significantly fewer actual combat experiences than soldiers assigned to combat units. The report recommended that the Army reconsider whether National Guard and Reserve support troops are getting adequate training in combat skills. Even though they do less fighting than combat troops, they might be better suited to cope with wartime stress if they had more confidence in their combat skills, it said. Only 55 percent of National Guard support soldiers said they have "real confidence" in their unit's ability to perform its mission, compared with 63 percent of active-duty Army support soldiers. And only 28 percent of the Guard troops rated their level of training as high, compared with 50 percent of their active-duty counterparts. Small focus groups were held to ascertain troop morale. The report said 54 percent of soldiers rated their units' morale as low or very low. The comparable figure in a year-earlier Army survey was 72 percent. (Sooooo technically the headline of this liberal biased article should be 'Morale up among U.S. Soldiers in Iraq')Although respondents said "combat stressors" like mortar attacks were higher in the most recent survey, "noncombat stressors" like uncertain tour lengths were much lower, the report said. The thing that bothered soldiers the most, the latest assessment said, was the length of their required stay in Iraq. At the start of the war, most were deployed for six months, but now they go for 12 months. Asked about this, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference that the Army's 12-month requirement is linked in part to its effort to complete a fundamental reorganization of fighting units. "I've tried to get the Army to look at the length of tours and I think at some point down the road they will," he said. |
| Posted by:bgrebel9 |
| #18 Suicide rates are a tricksy thing to try and draw any conclusions from. In my previous life, I was a broadcaster, assigned to AFKN-Seoul in the early 1990ies. Part of my gig there was to do a daily 5 minute radio news show, and one bright morning, my NCOIC called my attention to the fact that there had been an unusually high recorded rate of suicides among US forces assigned to the ROK during the previous year.(the figure was, as I recall, about 7 or 8.) He thought there might be a story in it, so I went along to CID, and tried to work out what it might be. I spent a couple of hours with the CID commander, and his chief investigator trying to work out exactly what--- if anything--- might be going on. (Amazing, I could get face-time with a full colonel and a WO, just by being with the media, even the in-house variety!) They brought out their records on every one, and...there was nothing that they or I could figure out an angle on. Except that only one of them was what we were always told was the stereotypical suicide hazard-- a young troop, in a crisis, and overtaken by despair, depression and access to serious weaponry. All the others were mid-rank officers, or senior NCOs... and for one of them, they could find no reason at all. (In retrospect, when they do a psychological post-mortem, they can usually find some reason for despair, in one case it still was a mystery) We eventually surmised that in a place like the ROK, the junior troops are very carefully watched, and closely supervised... it's the midrank people who weren't so supervised, and had a modicum of privacy, who could off themselves without anyone taking notice of the warning signs, and feeling they had to tell someone. And no, we never did come to any conclusion about why there were several more suicides that year, than in the several years before. Sometimes, s**t just happens. |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2005-07-20 22:15 |
| #17 9 suicides for 170,000 tropps (Iraq+Kuwait estimate), gives a rate of 5.3 in 2004. The US male suicide rate in 2002 was 17.9 per 100,000. Something is wrong. Seriously wrong. The troops are much too happy and will be ordered to be 3.37 times more miserable, in line with US averages. BTW, what's the suicide rate for lying scumbag journalists? |
| Posted by: ed 2005-07-20 22:14 |
| #16 Vietnamization increased US soldier morale in that war. As did use of the airforce in broad targeting (you should have been elsewhere, civilians). Who knows? I forsee changes in the terms of engagement. |
| Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler 2005-07-20 22:12 |
| #15 Bosnia must have REALLY sucked. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2005-07-20 21:59 |
| #14 And let's not forget that re-enlistment in combat units is at a record high. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-07-20 21:57 |
| #13 17-23% is normal for the normal population. In a combat zone, out of contact with family, strange environment, people shooting at you, that number seems pretty damn good. Moral is always lower for overseas deployment, especially in a combat zone. In the Bosnia, the people I talked to that were there said moral was lower than dirt, around 90% with really low moral. Typical with peacekeeping missions. |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2005-07-20 21:53 |
| #12 "And if morale's not low now, we'll keep running articles like this until it is." |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-07-20 21:51 |
| #11 Feral, I don't think that is correct. Morale in the units I had contact with (except Americal) was almost always high (69 thru 71). These were all infantry units. Things weren't perfect and rosy, but they weren't bad. Americal seemed jinxed. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2005-07-20 21:47 |
| #10 Do soldiers, in peace or war, in the US or overseas, ever say "Things are great! We're so 'appy!" |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-07-20 21:37 |
| #9 Wasn't there a Marine general who was dissed for saying that it was fun to kill terrorists? So which way do you want it? How does the suicide rate compare to those of people in other stressful jobs like NYPD officer or... hmmmm... AP journalists? |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-07-20 21:16 |
| #8 The reporter failed to ask the one question guaranteed to get a unanimous reponse: "How many of you would happily shoot me?" |
| Posted by: .com 2005-07-20 21:10 |
| #7 Even in WW2, I'll bet any survey would have reported low morale. That's the normal state for troops in a combat zone. Are they suppose to be saying "Oh, this is so much fun! Better than sex, better than a cruise, better than etc! How ridiculous. |
| Posted by: FeralCat 2005-07-20 20:25 |
| #6 Is the reporter capable of discerning between low morale and normal soldierly bitching & moaning? And how does this report of low morale square with the high re-enlistment numbers we've seen elsewhere? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-07-20 20:19 |
| #5 Man, there's a shuddersome idea; I wonder what morale they'd have now if he was? I'm sure annual visits by toothsome two-America's VP John Edwards, bucking up Sec Def Wesley Clark would bring morale ....er... nevermind |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-07-20 20:10 |
| #4 At least they have morale. In Vietnam the answer to the question, "how's morale?" was "what's morale". Big improvement. |
| Posted by: FeralCat 2005-07-20 20:07 |
| #3 Man, there's a shuddersome idea; I wonder what morale they'd have now if he was? By the way, if the election had gone to Kerry, today would have marked the end of his first six months in office-- and we'd be reading great green gobs of gooey, fawning, reverential bullshit in the MSM about how much "better" things are with him in office. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2005-07-20 19:53 |
| #2 Articles: The initial inquiry was triggered in part by an unusual surge in suicides among soldiers in Iraq in July 2003. Wednesday's report said the number of suicides in Iraq and Kuwait declined from 24 in 2003 to nine last year. Interestingly enough, July 2003 was before the guerrilla war started ramping up in earnest. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-07-20 19:52 |
| #1 The report said reasons for the improvement in mental health are not clear. They know they won't have John F'n Kerry as their Commander in Chief? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-07-20 19:20 |