Army official: Suicides in January 'terrifying'
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One week after the U.S. Army announced record suicide rates among its soldiers last year, the service is worried about a spike in possible suicides in the new year.
The Army said 24 soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in January alone -- six times as many as killed themselves in January 2008, according to statistics released Thursday.
The Army said it already has confirmed seven suicides, with 17 additional cases pending that it believes investigators will confirm as suicides for January.
If those prove true, more soldiers will have killed themselves than died in combat last month. According to Pentagon statistics, there were 16 U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq in January.
"This is terrifying," an Army official said. "We do not know what is going on."
Col. Kathy Platoni, chief clinical psychologist for the Army Reserve and National Guard, said that the long, cold months of winter could be a major contributor to the January spike......
Posts
2 comments:
They should be terrified of their own blindness to the human condition. What's so difficult to understand about soldiers being human and responding to horror in the only way they have control over? While living, they were owned by the the military machine which demanded slavish agreement with the incredibly insane ways of violence and cruelty.
these women and men are heroes. HUMAN heroes. they wound outside AND inside. it is OUR collective responsiblity to take care of them. that includes mental health as well. we keep dropping the ball - ask someone who was in viet nam
Post a Comment