Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Darron Salzer | Army Maj Gen. Raymond Carpenter, acting director of the Army National Guard, speaks...... read more read more
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ARLINGTON, Va. – Suicides nearly doubled in the Army National Guard in 2010 compared with a year earlier, the acting director said here today.
“For the Army National Guard, we had 112 suicides recorded in [calendar year] 2010, and 11 of those were while on active duty,” Army Maj. Gen. Raymond Carpenter said during a Pentagon briefing on Army suicides.
Carpenter said the increase in suicides is not necessarily from deployments.
“Over 50 percent of those that committed suicide in the Army Guard in 2010 never deployed, and it is not solely an [economic] problem … or a relationship problem either,” he said.
“In calendar year 2010, the Army had 343 suicides among soldiers, Department of the Army civilians and family members,” Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, said at the briefing, “[That is] 69 more than in calendar year 2009.”
“We achieved modest success in reducing the number suicides among soldiers serving on active duty,” Chiarelli said. “We saw a significant increase in suicides among soldiers not serving on active duty, including doubling in the Army National Guard.”
Active duty means all soldiers who served on active duty during the calendar year, whether they were Guard, Reserve or [regular Army], he said.
“The challenge in the year ahead,” Chiarelli said, “is to build upon the initial progress made in the active component while continuing our efforts to replicate that progress in the Reserve component[s], primarily by expanding the reach and accessibility of programs and services that positively impact the lives of soldiers serving on active duty.”
Chiarelli attributed the decrease in suicides among soldiers serving on active duty to the “programs and policy changes that have come out as a result of the health promotion and risk reduction task force.”
He added that current and future efforts will “take us from a leveling off of active duty suicides to a reduction in suicides, suicide attempts and other high-risk behaviors.
“The reality is that we are able to more effectively influence those soldiers serving on active duty … where it is much more difficult to do so with individuals not serving on active duty, because they are often geographically separated, removed from the support network provided by a military installation.
Chiarelli said that more aggressive actions need to be made in determining how “programs and efforts that are working effectively in support of soldiers on active duty may be modified, or expanded to better support those not serving on active duty, Department of the Army civilians and family members.”
He added that the unique challenge of reaching these soldiers is a top priority.
“We’re working with employers of Guard and Reserve soldiers … and the private sector,” he said, “to mitigate economic stress on Reserve component soldiers.
“We are also encouraging communities and community-based organizations to get involved, recognizing that for Citizen-soldiers not serving on active duty, family, peers and employers serve as the bedrock of their support network.”
Carpenter said the Army Guard is working to get to the root of the issues.
“With regard to mental and behavioral health issues and suicides, we have an online program out there in the Army National Guard that is a self-assessment, for the soldier to go in and fill out what he or she does on a daily basis, and in conjunction with his or her leader, develop a process for how to mitigate those risk behaviors,” he said.
The military is a cross-section of the rest of society, so anecdotally, “we know that society at large is seeing an increase trend in suicides,” Carpenter said, “so we think the suicide rate that we are experiencing in the Army Guard is part of a national trend.”
When it comes to screening for mental health issues among new recruits, Chiarelli said “according to the National Institute of Mental Health, the Army is doing as good as they can,” and this screening process is the same among all three Army components.
“This is an all-hands effort to solve this problem [of suicides] and to focus on what we think the problems are and put efforts against each one of those causes,” Carpenter said, “so even though it is a complex problem, we are going to deal with it with equal complexity and effort.”
“I’ve got to believe that the involvement of our leadership and the programs that we have rolled out, have saved soldiers’ lives,” said Chiarelli. “I believe unequivocally that that [there] would be higher numbers if we did not have the focus of the leadership and the programs that we have rolled out.
“Bottom line: This is a significant issue and clearly there is much to be done, but I am confident that many of our nation’s best and brightest men and women … are working tirelessly in this seminal area, and we will continue to get at this problem in the next year and beyond.”
| Date Taken: | 01.19.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 01.19.2011 22:39 |
| Story ID: | 63836 |
| Location: | ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 16 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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