Monthly Army suicides reach all-time high in July with 38 suspected

[sad sally]

Source: NBC News

Rebecca Ruiz, NBC News

There were 38 suspected suicides among active-duty and reserve soldiers in July, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Army.

That figure outpaces the 24 active-duty and reserve suicides the Army reported for the month of June and is the highest monthly number of suicides since record-keeping began a few years ago.

The Department of Defense did not attempt to explain the abrupt surge in suicides for the month of July in a statement announcing the figures.

"I do believe suicide is preventable," Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, vice chief of staff of the Army, said in the release. "To combat it effectively will require sophisticated solutions aimed at helping individuals to build resiliency and strengthen their life coping skills."

Bruce Shahbaz, a medical analyst on the Army’s Suicide Prevention Task Force, told Time that experts did notice the deaths of non-commissioned officers outnumbered those of junior enlisted members for the first time since 2001. NCOs are more likely to be older, married and at home between deployments, a period of time that can be turbulent and exacerbate stress, according to Shahbaz.

Read more: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/16/13320243-monthly-army-suicides-reach-all-time-high-in-july-with-38-suspected

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grim statistics...real people...

[BlueToTheBone]

1. Cognitive dissonance...trained to maim/torture/kill

and then expected to be normal.

This is such a great tragedy. I hope there is a special place in Hell for *co and all the evil people who foisted this nightmare on the world, especially the soldiers.

[byeya]

2. Recruits are told about job training and benefits and helping people in foreign lands and

then they face exactly the opposite when they are assigned to combat and have to abandon what they learned at home and at school.

[TrogL]

3. Westboro Baptist Church just tweeted its pleasure

No, I'm not going to paste it.