Army Suicides Highest in 26 Years

[thoughtone]

Support the troops?

By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest number since the 102 suicides in 1991 at the time of the Persian Gulf War.

The suicide rate for the Army has fluctuated over the past 26 years, from last year's high of 17.3 per 100,000 to a low of 9.1 per 100,000 in 2001.

Last year, "Iraq was the most common deployment location for both (suicides) and attempts," the report said.

The 99 suicides included 28 soldiers deployed to the two wars and 71 who weren't. About twice as many women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan committed suicide as did women not sent to war, the report said.

Preliminary numbers for the first half of this year indicate the number of suicides could decline across the service in 2007 but increase among troops serving in the wars, officials said.

The increases for 2006 came as Army officials worked to set up a number of new and stronger programs for providing mental health care to a force strained by the longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the global counterterrorism war entering its sixth year.

Failed personal relationships, legal and financial problems and the stress of their jobs were factors motivating the soldiers to commit suicide, according to the report.

"In addition, there was a significant relationship between suicide attempts and number of days deployed" in Iraq, Afghanistan or nearby countries where troops are participating in the war effort, it said. The same pattern seemed to hold true for those who not only attempted, but succeeded in killing themselves.

There also "was limited evidence to support the view that multiple ... deployments are a risk factor for suicide behaviors," it said.

About a quarter of those who killed themselves had a history of at least one psychiatric disorder. Of those, about 20 percent had been diagnosed with a mood disorder such as bipolar disorder and/or depression; and 8 percent had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, including post traumatic stress disorder - one of the signature injuries of the conflict in Iraq.

Firearms were the most common method of suicide. Those who attempted suicide but didn't succeed tended more often to take overdoses and cut themselves.

In a service of more than a half million troop, the 99 suicides amounted to a rate of 17.3 per 100,000 - the highest in the past 26 years, the report said. The average rate over those years has been 12.3 per 100,000.

The rate for those serving in the wars stayed about the same, 19.4 per 100,000 in 2006, compared with 19.9 in 2005.

The Army said the information was compiled from reports collected as part of its suicide prevention program - reports required for all "suicide-related behaviors that result in death, hospitalization or evacuation" of the soldier. It can take considerable time to investigate a suicide and, in fact, the Army said that in addition to the 99 confirmed suicides last year, there are two other deaths suspected as suicides in which investigations were pending.

---

Associated Press reporter Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report from Washington.

 

[Fuckallyall]

Were these for only full-time regular or all members including reservists and Guardsmen. Also, from what the report says, they have olny been tracking suicides for 26 years. That means we don't have numbers for 'Nam, Korea, WWI or WWII. I'm not doubting the report, I am just stating that it does not give much to compare against, as many people go into the military already troubled and are trying to change thier lives.

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Army suicides reported at 2-decade high</font size></center>

Associated Press
By PAULINE JELINEK
May 29, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pentagon officials say there were fewer Army suicides last year than they had feared. But it was still the highest number in almost two decades.

Two defense officials said Thursday that 108 troops committed suicide in 2007, the most since 1990. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the full report on the deaths wasn't being released until later Thursday.

Preliminary figures released in January showed as many as 121 troops killed themselves, but a number of the deaths were still being investigated then.

Suicides have been rising. The 108 last year followed 102 in 2006 and 85 in 2005.

The increases come despite a host of efforts to improve the mental health of a force stressed by lengthy and repeated deployments to Iraq.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i6GBOG0InqxDzX_TMyxFBWQ1hhQQD90VBNNO1

 

[nyyyyce]

Obama needs to make this -ish public and really attach McCain to the 100-years war he is in favor of. He needs to make America aware of the sacrifice of a few that are being made for all of us. The total # of wounded. What types of injuries, divorce rates - the F-N works. He skirting it while John McCain keeps stiff arming him with the "Patriotism" BS.

Then the economy is next. This can be a done deal if he reaches everyone with his firm grasp of the situations we are facing as Americans.

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>
Military brass answer to Congress on suicides</font size></center>


TheDay Connecticut
March 22, 2009


Washington - In response to what a senator called an “alarming” increase in the number of military suicides over the past year, several top military officials gathered to defend their efforts to prevent suicides before a Senate Armed Services subcommittee Wednesday.

”The numbers in every service have increased in the past two years, and that trend must not continue,” said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., the chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee.

MILITARY SUICIDES

2008 suicides

• Army: 140 (20.2 per 100,000)

• Navy: 41 (11.6)

• Marines: 41 (19.0)

• Air Force: 38 (11.5)

• General public (2005): 32,637 (11.0)

Increase from 2007

• Army: 22.6% (115 total in 2007)

• Navy: 10.8% (37 total in 2007)

• Marines: 24.2% (33 total in 2007)

SOURCES: U.S. ARMY, U.S. NAVY, U.S. MARINES, U.S. AIR FORCE, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION​

”We know that more is needed, and it's needed now,” Nelson said.

The hearing included testimony from military branches' “number twos”: Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army; Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, vice chief of naval operations; Gen. James F. Amos, Marine Corps assistant commandant; and Gen. William M. Frazer III, vice chief of staff of the Air Force.

The group was quick to stress that realistic declines in the suicide rate would not occur until external pressures on the overburdened forces are relieved. They emphasized that active-duty deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan, which has remained relatively steady over the past year, has an effect on the stress levels of all military personnel, not just soldiers stationed abroad.

”You could say it's not entirely dependent on (combat-related) stress, because one-third of those (who committed suicide) don't have any deployments at all; but I don't buy that,” Chiarelli said.

”The reality is we are dealing with a tired and stretched force,” he said. “We must find some ways of relieving this stress.”

All the officers present agreed the military's culture played a role in hindering their efforts' success. The armed forces' perceived attitude of “don't ask, don't tell” often extends to mental health problems and personal troubles, they said, preventing soldiers from seeking help.

”We must eliminate the perceived stigma and shame and dishonor of asking for help,” Walsh said.

The Army has taken the most criticism since it released its 2008 data on suicides Jan. 30. Those figures revealed that 140 active-duty soldiers committed suicide last year, an all-time high for the Army.

It also marked the first time the Army's suicide rate-20.2 per 100,000 soldiers-surpassed the public's, according to 2005 statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most recent national figures available.

While the Navy's 2008 suicide rate of 11.6 per 100,000 sailors was much lower than the Army's, the Navy still faces a challenge in locating the root causes of the problem.

Unlike the Army, the Navy has found no correlation between serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and increased risk for committing suicide. Since 2003, veterans of the two wars accounted for only 3 percent of Navy suicides.

Maj. Gen. David A. Rubenstein, deputy surgeon general of the Army, underscored the difficulty in targeting which soldiers could be at risk for suicide. Just hours before the hearing, he said, he learned that a former soldier who suffered a traumatic brain injury more than two years ago-and who had been a model patient since, even giving motivational speeches to groups of wounded veterans-had committed suicide Tuesday.

”This solder was treated, was compliant and was supported in every way,” Rubenstein said. “And yet, he's dead today.”


http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=2d2e88f1-ddb5-4477-9908-f16494e70ec3

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>
Military suicides are causing
civilian casualties, too</font size></center>

Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Wimmer with his family on Father's Day,
a month before he hanged himself.


McClatchy Newspapers
By Halimah Abdullah
Sunday, February 28, 2010


WASHINGTON — Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Wimmer charmed potential Army recruits with a movie star's smile, but somehow it never quite reached his eyes, even when he was cradling his newborn twin daughters.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he dreamed of his own dead body swinging from a rope, his feet dangling just above a chair.

When those nightmares eventually blurred, the Persian Gulf veteran and former Army recruiter began trying to recreate their grisly images. He tried to kill himself with pills in the woods, and a razor blade in a hotel room, and every suicide attempt drew his wife, Jennifer, and their four daughters deeper into his dark world.

Jennifer learned that his fourth suicide attempt, on July 23, had succeeded when she got a text message: You'll "find his body hanging like a Christmas ornament from a tree across from the range on base. If he knew I was sending this he would be pissed. Hope you understand. Bob."

Jennifer doesn't know who "Bob" is, and the military is preparing to close its investigation into his death pending more evidence.

So less than a year after Daniel Wimmer, five days short of his 34th birthday, drove his white Ford F-150 truck to nearby Fort Benning, a sprawling military installation near Columbus, Ga., and hanged himself from a tree across from a practice range, his family is still caught in the dark currents that took his life — a life they're only just beginning to understand.

"It's like fighting the ocean with a teaspoon," said Jennifer, 42. "When I wake up, I ask myself, 'Is it going to hurt today'?"

Last month, the Defense Department reported that there were 160 reported active-duty Army suicides in 2009, up from 140 in 2008. Of these, 114 have been confirmed, while the cause of death in the remaining 46 has yet to be determined.

While the military's suicide rate is comparable to civilian rates, the increase is alarming because the armed services traditionally had lower suicide rates than the general population. The increase in military suicides includes men between the ages of 18-30, mid-career officers and, increasingly, women.

The numbers don't tell the whole story. Long after the flag-draped coffins are lowered into the ground, families such as the Wimmers are left to measure their grief in a seemingly endless stretch of days marked by missed birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and babies' first steps.

"I think we need to realize that we have families that are under such great stress," Deborah Mullen, the wife of Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told more than 1,000 military and federal health care workers at a suicide prevention conference in January. "This stress is only going to continue. We need to be able to give tools to family members who are left behind."

Daniel's depression consumed the loving husband and father his family once knew and left behind a despondent phantom. They met in 2007, and early on, Jennifer Wimmer felt him slipping away and tried desperately to hold on.

"From the moment I met him, I knew he suffered from issues of depression," she said. "When I told him that he needed to get some help, he said, 'I can't do that. It will damage my career.'"

Despite calls by top Pentagon officials for a sea change in attitudes about mental health, millions of dollars in new suicide prevention programming and thousands of hours spent helping soldiers suffering from what are euphemistically dubbed "invisible wounds," stereotypes about mental health still exist, and they complicate the military's efforts to stem the rising tide of suicides.

Like other military families in Phenix City, Ala., a town of 30,000 near Fort Benning, love of country and a sense of honor and duty ran deep for the Wimmers. So Jennifer initially said nothing to Daniel's commanding officers and resolved to keep the matter private, telling only his unit chaplain.

She'd known by their second date that they were destined to be together. She was charmed by his sweet half smile and by the sad brown eyes that seemed to match his humble disposition, and she vowed to watch for any signs of inner turmoil.

They dated for seven months and married in March 2008.

Things were good at first. They bought a new home on a quiet street in a subdivision where Daniel ran alongside the kids as they rode their bikes, and they had a large backyard where he goaded his stepdaughters into water balloon fights.

"He was the best mentor to the kids and the greatest parent," Jennifer said. "I would listen to him talk, and they would hang on his every word."

Even though he hated the long hours, he took a similarly fatherly role as a recruiter and later a drill sergeant, and he was immensely proud of the privates he'd recruited and the soldiers he'd trained.

Months before he committed suicide, though, the Wimmer family learned that he was being reassigned to Fort Carson, Colo.

"When he realized that the one thing that gave him some pride was going to go away, he felt lost," his wife said.

Daniel Wimmer began taking long drives by himself at night, steering his truck across the Alabama-Georgia state line to the woods at Fort Benning's edge. One morning in March, he returned home and told his wife that he'd been sitting in the woods all night, staring into the dark and swallowing a bottle of muscle relaxers.

He didn't go to the hospital, and seemed fine physically, so the couple decided to keep the matter between them and the unit chaplain.

The next month, however, he tried to overdose again, this time with sleeping pills. Jennifer, by now six months pregnant with their twin daughters, said she packed him into the car and drove him to Martin Army Community Hospital in Fort Benning, where he was admitted for inpatient psychiatric care and given antidepressants.

His commanding officers were finally told that he suffered from depression.

"He said that's when he felt like he was spinning out of control," his wife said. "He would tell me he saw dead people walking around. He told me that every time he closed his eyes, he saw himself hanging above a chair."

Jennifer struggled to maintain some semblance of normalcy for the girls. In between treks to Atlanta to see an obstetrician-gynecologist who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, she shuttled the girls to school, helped them with their homework and reassured them that daddy was just going through a rough patch, but would soon be back with them.

In May, though, he disappeared again, and tried to kill himself with more sleeping pills. Jennifer said that she got into a car accident while she was trying to find him.

"They thought I was going to deliver the babies" after the accident, she said. "I was in the hospital overnight, and he stayed with me."

The next day, though, Daniel didn't go to work, and he never came back to the hospital. After she was discharged, Jennifer said, she checked the online credit card statement, and he'd checked himself into a hotel in Hogansville, Ga., an hour away from their house.

She said that she and a chaplain sped over to the hotel. Wimmer stumbled into the room with blood on his wrists.

He refused to go back to the hospital, and the next day his commanding officers met with the couple to talk about Wimmer's rapidly deteriorating mental health. He was advised to take a month off and seek additional counseling.

"Our relationship was tense because I didn't know what to do to help him," his wife said, adding that she asked herself every day, "Do I leave, or do I stay? It was a very bad place for me, too. It was like walking on eggshells. If I was the cause of him losing his position, what would that mean for me? Then I thought, am I the meddling wife?"

The Wimmers' twin girls arrived amid this upheaval and uncertainty. They were dark-haired darlings who, for a while at least, seemed to quell their father's inner rage. He wrote them a letter saying, "I daydream every day of the great wonderful women you will grow up to be. I just pray that I will be a good father and role model for you to follow."

That same week, he also wrote of his growing disillusionment with military service.

"I no longer believe in the cause. We preach that soldiers protect our way of life and our freedoms, but is it really? I now feel all soldiers are in pons (sic) ready to die to make the poloticans (sic) rich."

The next month, when his wife asked how his return to work was going, "He snapped and said I'm done with the Army. I'm done with you. I'm done with doctors. I'm done with pills. I'm done."

Then he sped off into the night.

He never returned.

Daniel Wimmer's suicide ripped a hole in the gossamer fabric of his family's life. His wife used to sit in his truck for hours, inhaling his fresh-out-of-the-shower scent, which still lingered on the seats. She finally sold the truck, no longer able to bear the reminder of how it often spirited him away from her.

His oldest daughter Sara, 15, puts on a brave front and tries to help her mother with the younger children. His middle daughter, 8-year-old Alexandra, is angry and often sleeps with his shirt at night to console herself and writes poetry and songs about her dad.

"As long as a soldier does his job, everything is good, then when something like this happens the family is chastised, too, and it's like, 'Well, what did she do? How could she have prevented this? Spouses are looked at very harshly," Jennifer Wimmer said.

"It hurts me more because I was so proud to be married to my husband, and he was such a dedicated, decorated soldier. I still believe in our Army, our military. But it hurts."


http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/02/28/88864/military-suicides-are-causing.html