In December of 2003, the Baltimore Sun ran a headline -- "Army's Suicide Rate has Outside Experts Alarmed." In that article, we were told, "A report by a 12-member team of military and civilian mental health professionals dispatched to Iraq in October to evaluate mental health of soldiers is expected to be released after the holidays." Good news, something was being done.
"After the holidays" turned out to be the end of March of 2004, when Stars and Stripes ran the headline, "Suicide Report Makes Army Improve." That story reported the Army taking "swift steps to improve mental health services for troops in Iraq and Kuwait" and that it would "send in behavioral health experts and improve logistics to get antidepressants and sleeping pills to combat troops immediately."
Now we see the headline, more than three years later, "Army Suicides Highest in 26 Years." Not surprisingly, a new Army Suicide Event Report (ASER) notes that "there was a significant relationship between suicide attempts and number of days deployed" in theater.
"This new report only confirms what we veterans have been saying for years," writes Paul Rieckhoff, of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. He tells us "Soldiers and Marines who have deployed to Iraq more than once have a 50% higher rate of combat stress," that "90% of military psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers reported no formal training or supervision in the recommended PTSD therapies," and that "VA officials have admitted that
waiting lists render mental health and substance abuse care 'virtually inaccessible.'" You have to wonder what things were like before the Army made all of its improvements...
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