Washington: Suicides in the US Army this year have topped last year's record-breaking numbers, with the military particularly troubled by new statistics showing a surge in suicide rates among young soldiers, officials have said.
General Peter Chiarelli, the US Army Vice Chief of Staff, said the Army is still trying to tackle why soldiers are killing themselves.
He said 140 active-duty soldiers have killed themselves while another 71 Army Reserve and National Guard soldiers killed themselves since January, totalling 211 at the beginning of this week.
"This is horrible, and I do not want to downplay the significance of these numbers in any way," Chiarelli told reporters.
According to Army statistics, for all of 2008, 140 active-duty soldiers killed themselves while 57 Guard and Reserve soldiers committed suicide, totalling 197.
"We still haven't found any statistically significant causal linkage that would allow us to effectively predict human behaviour. The reality is, there is no simple answer -- each suicide case is as unique as the individuals themselves," Chiarelli was quoted as saying by the CNN.
Another puzzling factor for Army researchers, the top commander said, were troubling new statistics suggesting a surge in suicide rates among young soldiers who have never deployed.
Chiarelli stressed his frustration with getting answers to the suicide problem.
"Everywhere I try to cut this and look at it to try to find out what the causal effect is, I get thwarted. And that's why we think that we've got to look in its totality at a whole bunch of different issues, and it's going to take time," the US Army Vice Chief of Staff said.
Experts believe it often takes time for them to diagnose suicidal tendencies in veterans.
"Because in the beginning they're often not readily willing to share with us that level of what they're experiencing because it is a maybe scary and also uncomfortable thing," said Chris Petrone with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
According to suicide prevention experts, contributing factors for suicidal tendencies in soldiers and veterans include traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress disorder, and pain and injury issues.
Col Kathy Platoni, chief clinical psychologist for the Army Reserve and National Guard, said "The more deployments, the more it is exacerbated."
"When people are apart you have infidelity, financial problems, substance abuse and child behavioural problems," said Platoni, who has dealt with American soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Chiarelli said the problem has got accentuated amid a surge in numbers of soldiers abusing prescription drugs and alcohol upon returning from the war zones.
Since March, the US military has implemented numerous programmes and policies, including setting up a suicide prevention task force, a day off from official duties to focus on suicide prevention and a comprehensive soldier fitness programme, in a bid to slow the rate, the report said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, November 19, 2009, 16:02