Soaring suicide rate plagues US Army
Thu Aug 26, 2010 2:3AM



The US Army leadership needs to establish a new suicide prevention office to curb the record number of self-inflicted deaths among troops, a new report says.


Officials failed to recognize disturbing trends and are often too distracted by planning the next military mission, the findings of an independent task force report ordered by Congress said.

The report found that more than 1,100 members of the armed forces killed themselves from 2005 to 2009.

Experts studying the effects of prolonged war on the human psyche say repeated tours without sufficient time between deployments may be part of the problem.

"He or she should have two days for every day they have spent in a combat zone, so if your twelve months in Iraq or Afghanistan you should not go back until at least 24 months," Lawrence J. Korb , senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, told Press TV.

"On average many of the combat brigades in the army were lucky to have a year in between deployment," he added.

The report titled "The Challenge and the Promise: Strengthening the Force, Preventing Suicide, and Saving Lives," involves 49 findings and 76 associated recommendations.

“Simply stated, we are often more dangerous to ourselves than the enemy,” said the report.

The military needed to pay more attention to soldiers' mental health and take more serious measures to halt substance abuse and criminal behavior among them, the 15-month study concluded.

MT/MGH

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