16 July 2010

Army sees worst month for suicides ever - Stripes Central - Stripes

Army sees worst month for suicides ever - Stripes Central - Stripes

Bad news from the Army this afternoon; more soldiers killed themselves last month than any other month on record. There were 21 active-duty and 11 reserve soldier suicides.
This news comes just weeks after Gen. Peter Chiarelli told Congress the Army was encouraged by there being 30 percent fewer suicides among active-duty soldiers so far this year than last. Although he said there was more to do, he thought the decrease showed their prevention efforts were working. But with this latest data, the trend seems to be frustratingly more of the same.
Through the first six months of 2009, 88 active-duty soldiers committed suicide. For this year, that number is 80. The trend is most troubling among reserve component soldiers; those numbers jumped from 42 to 65.
The June numbers for active duty brought the Army back to January of 2009, which was the first of two alarming months that sent the Army scrambling to create the Suicide Prevention Task Force and then to hold a service-wide stand down. Col. Chris Philbrick, director of the task force, said there were no plans for another stand down.
Today the Army did release a new suicide prevention video - one they hope goes over better than their first attempt. The task force put out a video to go with last year's stand down. "I'd love to tell you it was a hit, but it wasn't," Philbrick said. The feedback they got from soldiers? "It sucked."
For starters, some of the "soldiers" talking were really actors, and it didn't go unnoticed. Philbrick watched the video in a dining facility with about 300 soldiers, and nearly all "laughed their way through it," he said. Overall with the typical Pentagonese tone, "it just didn't resonate."
The second generation features testimonials from soldiers - all actually in the Army this time - who struggled with suicide ideations. One particularly powerful story involves a soldier who put his rifle to his chin and pulled the trigger. Only it didn't go off because a fellow concerned soldier had taken the firing pin out of the gun.
You can view the 18-minute suicide prevention video here.

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