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Date published: 11/18/2009
By NANCY A. YOUSSEF WASHINGTON --Suicides in the Army are expected to reach a new high this year, with 140 suspected cases among active-duty soldiers so far, Army officials said yesterday.This will be the fifth year in a row that grim statistic rose despite an aggressive military campaign to tackle the mental health stigma in the Army. This year's number already matches that for all of 2008. There were 115 suicides in 2007 and 102 in 2006. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the Army's vice chief of staff, said that the military wasn't seeing any trends that explained the rise. Forty suicides occurred in the first two months of the year. About a third were by soldiers who had never deployed to war zones, and 40 percent of those who committed suicide had seen mental health specialists. "We are almost certainly going to end the year higher than last year," Chiarelli said. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan often have demanded that soldiers serve multiple tours. Coupled with the shootings at Fort Hood, concerns are rising about stress on the force, particularly as the Obama administration considers sending more troops to Afghanistan. Indeed, an Army study released last week found that a growing number of soldiers serving in Afghanistan are suffering from some kind of mental stress, and that the war zone doesn't have enough mental health counselors to meet the needs there. Domestically, Chiarelli said, the biggest increased numbers of suicides happened at Fort Stewart, Ga., with 10, Fort Campbell, Ky., with 18, and Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, with seven. The biggest declines have occurred at Fort Hood, with 11; Fort Bragg, N.C., with six; and Fort Drum, N.Y., with two so far this year, even though they're some of the largest military installations deploying troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. At Fort Campbell, the majority of suicides were by soldiers who'd never deployed. He said the military's study had found that substance and prescription-drug abuse was increasingly a contributing factor, adding that he thought that the Army needed another 300 The Army is looking at ways to give more mental health options to the forces, including online counseling, which younger soldiers prefer.
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