Army: Up to 12 active-duty suicides in January

[unhappycamper]

Army: Up to 12 active-duty suicides in January
By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 17, 2010 15:41:27 EST

As many as 12 active-duty soldiers killed themselves in January, the Army announced Wednesday.

Of the 12, one death has been confirmed as suicide while the other 11 remain under investigation.

January’s total is two more than the 10 deaths reported in December. Of those 10, three have been confirmed, while the others remain under investigation.

Among reserve component soldiers who were not on active duty during the time of their deaths, as many as 15 soldiers are believed to have killed themselves in January. That’s more than twice the seven suspected suicides in December. Five of the seven deaths in December have since been confirmed as suicides.

The January deaths come after a year when the Army suffered as many as 160 active-duty soldier suicides. The number in 2009 was the highest rate the Army has seen in 30 years, and it marked five consecutive years of increasing suicide numbers.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/02/army_suicide_data_021710w/

[Jax]

1. from the dreaded Socialist Times..

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/suic-j06.shtml

snip...

"American military personnel are continuing to take their own lives in unprecedented numbers, as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq wars drag on.
By late November, at least 334 members of the armed forces had committed suicide in 2009, more than the 319 who were killed in Afghanistan
or the 150 who died in Iraq. While a final figure is not available, the toll of military suicides last year was the worst since records began to be kept in 1980."

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=334+suicides&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8





http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/suic-j06.shtml
snip...

For every death, at least five members of the armed forces were hospitalised for attempting to take their life. According to the Navy Times,
2 percent of Army; 2.3 percent of Marines and 3 percent of Navy respondents to the military’s own survey of 28,536 members from all branches
reported they had attempted suicide at some point. The “Defense Survey of Health-Related Behaviors” also found “dangerous levels” of alcohol abuse
and the illicit use of drugs such as pain killers by 12 percent of personnel."





http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072203105.html

snip....

"LAST YEAR, 143 soldiers, 41 sailors, 41 Marines and 31 airmen took their own lives. For the first time, suicides in the Army have outpaced the rate
for the same demographic group in the nation at large, with the highest number since the Pentagon began keeping track in 1980."




Enough.


Alyce, born into the military by lifers well over 50 years ago.