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| Army plans new training after record number of suicides |
| 2009-01-30 |
| WASHINGTON (CNN) -- On the same day that it announced record suicides among its soldiers, the U.S. Army said Thursday that it will soon conduct service-wide training to help identify soldiers at risk of suicide. The program will teach soldiers how to recognize behaviors that may lead to suicide, and how to intervene. The program, which will run February 15 through March 15, will include training to recognize behaviors that may lead to suicide and instruction on how to intervene. The Army will follow the training with another teaching program, from March 15 to June 15, focused on suicide prevention at all unit levels. Earlier Thursday, the Army reported the highest one-year level of suicides among its soldiers since it began tracking the rate 28 years ago. The Army said that 128 soldiers were confirmed to have committed suicide in 2008, and an additional 15 were suspected to have committed suicide that year in cases under investigation among active-duty soldiers and activated National Guard and reserves. The Army's confirmed rate of suicides in 2008 was 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers. The nation's suicide rate was 19.5 per 100,000 people in 2005, a figure considered the most recent, Army officials said last month. In 2007, the Army reported 115 confirmed suicides, which was then the highest level since 1980, when it began tracking suicides. Suicides for Marines were also up in 2008. There were 41 in 2008, up from 33 in 2007 and 25 in 2006, according to a Marines report. In addition to the training the Army announced Thursday, the service has a program called Battlemind, intended to prepare soldiers and their families to cope with the stresses of war before, during and after deployment. It also is intended to help detect mental-health issues before and after deployments. The Army and the National Institute of Mental Health signed an agreement in October to conduct research to identify factors affecting the mental and behavioral health of soldiers and to share strategies to lower the suicide rate. The five-year study will examine active-duty, National Guard and reserve soldiers and their families. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 #4: Unfortunately, suicides and attempts have occurred recently among cadets at West Point. I was a Cadet at the Air Force Academy from June through December, 1964. I spent the last three weeks of the semester in the hospital following a boxing accident, and washed out. At the same time, I DO have a bit of an inside view of cadet life most don't. During our cadet summer training ("basic"), we had three suicides from a group of about 950 people. One of them was in my "squadron". While the miliary tries to keep the numbers down, high-stress situations create problems, and not all of them can be "solved". At the same time, I personally know of only two suicides among all the people I worked with over a 26-year career. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-01-30 20:25 |
| #5 Has the game been invented, Anonymoose, or is it still a dream from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-01-30 12:58 |
| #4 Eventually, I hope the military gets its hands on a "complex psychological battery", basically a video game that you play that spots underlying risk problems. It is not obvious or very objective of a test, but provides a "psychological preponderance" of risk, like a warning flag. Just for one serious problem alone, PTSD, it has been noted that soldiers follow the Standard Distribution (bell shaped) curve. That is, about 5% *anybody* can tell they had better not be put under stress. 17% (including that 5%) will rapidly develop PTSD in a stressful situation, too quickly to be useful in such situations. Think days or a few weeks. The middle of the curve, the bulk of military personnel, will start to experience PTSD symptoms from two months (60 days) to about four months (120 days) in stress. The low end of the curve, again 17%, can perform for four to eight months without problems, and of them, about 5% don't develop PTSD much at all. It is reasonable to assume that other psychological problem also fit their own SDC, but also overlay the PTSD curve as well. Added together, it makes the overall curve higher, that is, more personnel having psychological problems as time goes by. It should also be noted that 50% of psychological problems are self-healing with stress reduction. So the purpose of a complex battery would be almost as recreation when personnel are under stress or even on an ongoing basis. With the program and its standards continually adjusted to fit the "actual" psychological cases that come about. What it boils down to is each soldier getting time to "play" a video game, both individually, and as a multiplayer game with his peers, superiors, and subordinates. His individual and team efforts are analyzed, looking for similarities between them and the efforts of those diagnosed as having psychological problems. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-01-30 11:21 |
| #3 Another factor is behaviors and attitudes that cause the group to exclude you. The deserter from yesterday is an example. When your life can be pretty much summed up as the pits and you fail to take advantage of the new life given to you by continuing self destructive behaviors which gets you isolated in a military environment by your peers, its either run or destruction. Had two during peacetime in the division I was in, both cases the individual had just been or was being separated for behavioral problems. It's the dark side of the bonding process which is critical to small unit effectiveness. If you fail and have nothing else to fall back upon, some see it as an option. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-30 08:56 |
| #2 I concur with Glen. Continued multiple 12-15 month deployments have got to be a huge contributing factor. Also, the figures and numbers might mean a bit more if they were compaired to non-military personnel of the same age groups and gender. Married vs single, etc. Were the suicides conducted during deployments to hostile areas or upon return to CONUS? Were drugs or alcohol involved? I'm sure these factors are being examined. While I appreciate the article and the concern, it isn't an in-depth analysis of the potential causes. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-01-30 07:56 |
| #1 Frequent and extended separations from families are stressful, whether in the military or private business. That alone might cause an increase in suicides. In addition, that separation might keep soldiers away from the help and support they need to manage other sources of depression. And finally, in the military culture it has always been difficult to admit weakness and ask for help (this is true for many outside the military as well.) I suspect the only thing that keeps military suicides down to the level of the general population is the mutual support and bonding within units. And all of the above applies even without the stress of people shooting at you (or you at them) and trying to blow you up. Glad to see the Army re-emphasizing their concern. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-01-30 07:44 |