{"id":2438,"date":"2010-07-29T15:28:22","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T19:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2438"},"modified":"2010-07-29T15:28:22","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T19:28:22","slug":"the-armys-suicide-epidemic-continues-to-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/07\/29\/the-armys-suicide-epidemic-continues-to-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"The Army&#8217;s suicide epidemic continues to grow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today the Army released a new report on violence, drug abuse, and suicide in its ranks, <a href=\"http:\/\/usarmy.vo.llnwd.net\/e1\/HPRRSP\/HP-RR-SPReport2010_v00.pdf\">a &#8220;hard-hitting and transparent&#8221; document<\/a>, according to the man who commissioned it, Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli.<\/p>\n<p>The findings couldn&#8217;t be more grim:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>239 active duty and reserve soldiers committed suicide last year.<\/li>\n<li>1,713 attempted to kill themselves.<\/li>\n<li>146 active duty soldiers died last year from &#8220;high risk behavior&#8221;, including 74 from drug overdoses.<\/li>\n<li>Last month alone, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/07\/16\/AR2010071605839.html\">there were 32 potential suicides<\/a> among active duty and reserve soldiers.\u00a0 Some are still being investigated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Perhaps even more troubling is the Army seems ill-prepared to deal with the epidemic.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/thetwo-way\/2010\/07\/29\/128844113\/commanders-have-ignored-major-mental-health-issues-army-report-concludes\">From NPR&#8217;s reporting<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>According to NPR&#8217;s Rachel Martin, &#8220;Defense\u00a0officials\u00a0say commanders on  the ground don&#8217;t have the training to make suicide prevention a priority  \u2014 or to recognize the signs of a soldier on the brink.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chiarelli promises &#8220;a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to address this risk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yet the suicide problem &#8211; widely considered the by-product of repeat deployments to nightmarish war zones &#8211; has been around <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northcountrypublicradio.org\/news\/story\/12066\/rainy-march-recalls-grim-reality-at-fort-drum\">for years now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/09\/11\/army-suicide-rates-still-out-of-control\/\">the stigma within the Army<\/a> on seeking help for mental health issues has been around practically as long as the institution itself.\u00a0 In fact, one military families advocate, Kristy Kaufmann, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/national\/archive\/2010\/07\/can-the-armys-new-suicide-prevention-plan-really-work\/60600\/\">says it runs so deeply in Army culture, spouses buy in, too<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve been remarkably silent so far &#8212; in a sense, we have the same  stiff-upper-lip culture as the guys. You know, &#8216;Put on your big girl  panties and deal with it,'&#8221; she says. &#8220;But the family-member numbers are  high enough that we need to make this a part of the national dialogue  about military suicides. We can&#8217;t ignore it any longer.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>No one&#8217;s doubting Chiarelli&#8217;s best efforts &#8211; or those of any of the Army&#8217;s leaders.\u00a0 It goes without saying commanders don&#8217;t want their troops taking their own lives.<\/p>\n<p>But how long does it take to change an entire military culture?\u00a0 Is it possible?\u00a0 How long can we afford to wait?<\/p>\n<p>And at one point do we as Americans say, &#8220;this is what being the policeman of the world looks like, fighting wars on two fronts for the better part of a decade, &#8216;rooting out the terrorists where they live&#8217;.\u00a0 And we don&#8217;t like what we see.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today the Army released a new report on violence, drug abuse, and suicide in its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}