U.S. military battles to reduce number of suicides
Last year 350 soldiers took their own lives
WASHINGTON — Five years ago, Joe Miller, then an Army Ranger captain with three Iraq tours under his belt, sat inside his home near Fort Bragg holding a cocked Beretta pistol, and prepared to kill himself.
He didn’t pull the trigger. So Miller’s name wasn’t added to the list of active-duty U.S. military men and women who have committed suicide. That tally reached 350 last year, a record pace of nearly one a day. That’s more than the 295 American troops who were killed in Afghanistan in the same year.
“I didn’t see any hope for me at the time. Everything kind of fell apart,” Miller said. “Helplessness, worthlessness. I had been having really serious panic attacks. I had been hospitalized for a while.” He said he pulled back at the last minute when he recalled how he had battled the enemy in Iraq, and decided he would fight his own depression and post-traumatic stress.
The U.S. military and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) acknowledge the grave difficulties facing active-duty and former members of the armed services who have been caught up in the more than decadelong American involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The system struggles to prevent suicides among troops and veterans because potential victims often don’t seek counselling given the stigma still associated by many with mental illnesses or the deeply personal nature of a problem that often precedes suicide. Experts also cite illicit drug use, alcohol and financial woes.
The number of suicides is nearly double that of a decade ago when the United States was just a year into the Afghan war and hadn’t yet invaded Iraq. While the pace is down slightly this year, it remains worryingly high.
The military says about 22 veterans kill themselves every day and a beefed up and more responsive VA could help. But how to tackle the spiking suicide number among activeduty troops, which is tracking a similar growth in suicide numbers in the general population, remains in question. The increase in suicides among the baby boomer population — linked by many to the recent recession — began a decade before the 2008 financial meltdown.
Compounding the problem, the VA — which administers health and other government benefits for veterans — has a huge backlog of disability, medical and other claims resulting from service in the military. Eric Shinseki, head of the VA and a former general, promises to have the backlog erased — but not before 2015. The Pentagon and Veteran Affairs are working to install computer systems to speed up the process.
Jason Hansman, of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, says the problem among military men and women stems from a support system that falls far short of the needs of a military and its veterans. “One of the big problems now is that we are trying to play catch-up on 10-plus years of war. People have gone back and forth seven, eight, nine times. And now you have a force that is stretched to its limit,” Hansman said.