US Army Suicides Continue at Record Pace
VOANews.com
By Al Pessin
November 17, 2009
The U.S. Army reported Tuesday that the number of suicides among soldiers this year has already equaled the number for all of last year, and so will rise for the fifth consecutive year, in spite of a major effort to combat the trend. The Army’s number two officer says he is significantly short of the type of professionals who could help reverse the trend.
The vice chief of the Army, General Peter Chiarelli was frank about the latest statistics. …
The general reported there have been 140 suicides among active duty soldiers this year, and another 71 among reservists and members of the National Guard, some of whom had been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. …
“Everywhere I try to cut this and look at and try to find the causal effect I get thwarted, and that’s why we think we’ve got to look, in its totality, at a whole bunch of different issues. And it’s going to take time,” he said. …
