With Rising Suicide Rates, Army Urges Soldiers to Help One Another

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2008 – With 2008 suicide rates expected to exceed last year’s all-time-high rate and threatening to top those in the civilian population, the Army is stepping up efforts to get soldiers and their leaders to look out for each other’s well-being and to take the stigma out of seeking mental-health help.

Sixty-two active-duty soldiers, most of them junior enlisted members, committed suicide so far this calendar year, Col. Eddie Stephens, the Army’s deputy director for human resource policy, told reporters today during a Pentagon roundtable. The armed forces medical examiner is investigating another 31 suspected cases to determine if they will be classified as suicides.

If this trend continues through 2008, the Army will exceed last year’s 115 suicides, an all-time high for the Army, he reported. This threatens to surpass the 2007 rate of 18.1 suicides per 100,000 soldiers, approaching the 19.5 per 100,000 rate for U.S. civilians in the same demographic.

\”The leadership of the army recognizes this development and considers even one suicide one too many,\” he said.

After ushering in a broad range of programs designed to stop soldiers from taking their own lives, the Army is turning to what officials call the No. 1 defense: junior leaders who often know soldiers better than their own families do.