N MARCH 2009, Roxann Abrams received the news no mother ever wants to hear. Her son, Army Sgt. 1st Class Randy Abrams, was dead. Randy, who enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps right out of high school and later went into the Army and served three tours of duty in Iraq, didn’t die overseas — he died by his own hand in February 2009. His death is one of a growing number of suicides in the U.S. armed forces.
Unofficial figures from DoD indicate 349 servicemembers, from all branches of the armed forces, died by suicide in 2012. That’s a 15-percent increase in suicide rates from 2011. In fact, more soldiers died from suicide in 2012 than from combat in Afghanistan, which the Associated Press reports at 295 deaths. The U.S. Army has the highest rate of suicide of all branches: more than 32 suicides per 100,000 soldiers, and Army rates of suicide have been increasing steadily since 2004.
However, the average suicide rate in the armed forces overall — 24 suicides per 100,000 servicemembers — is fairly on par with the suicide rate for U.S. civilian men ages 17 to 60. The suicide rate for veterans greatly exceeds that of active duty servicemembers. Though DoD and the VA have not yet developed a way to track veteran suicides, the VA estimates 18 veterans kill themselves every day.
Reasons for rising rate
A variety of factors explain the rising suicide rate, according to Dr. David Rudd, a clinical psychologist, cofounder of the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah, and former military psychologist for the 2nd Armored Division. One is the U.S. military has seen 11 years of combat with high operational tempo, long working hours, and long periods in the field on two fronts: Iraq and Afghanistan. “We’ve never served in two simultaneous wars for this duration,” Rudd says. “Recent data show that those with repeated combat exposure have greater risk of suicide.”
However, DoD doesn’t necessarily see combat as a factor in suicide risk. “Over 50 percent of those who have committed suicide have not deployed,” says Jacqueline Garrick, acting director of the Defense Suicide Prevention Office of the Undersecretary of Personnel and Readiness. “So we don’t see deployment as a factor.”
“Our rate per 100,000 is based on a very small segment of the population,” she adds, noting the military has a much younger demographic overall, with most servicemembers being between the ages of 18 and 29. “When you make decisions [about suicide rates] based on data instead of research, you miss the interactions. No two deaths are alike.” Garrick points to relationship, financial, and legal issues as major contributing factors to suicide risk in the military.
DoD carefully tracks suicides (and the potential reasons behind them) in its annual Suicide Event Report. In 2011, DoD reported nearly 45 percent of servicemembers who died by suicide had a history of at least one prior documented behavioral disorder, suggesting a preexisting condition might have contributed to a servicemember’s decision to commit suicide.
Abrams, who in the wake of her son’s death founded Operation I.V., an organization dedicated to helping servicemembers returning from war cope with issues like PTSD, thinks lack of proper screening of military recruits is a major problem. “Recruiting has failed,” Abrams says. “The military has numbers to meet, and recruiters are under sales pressure.”
Facts on Military Suicides
■ 349 servicemembers died by suicide in 2012, up from 301 in 2011.
■ The U.S. Army has the highest suicide rate, with 183 active duty suicide deaths in 2012.
■ Data released recently by the U.S. Army indicates 140 Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers died by suicide in 2012.
■ Suicide is now the most common cause of death in the Army, claiming more lives annually than combat.
■ Veteran suicide rates are substantially higher than those of active duty personnel; a veteran dies by suicide every 80 minutes.
■ According to new data from the VA, veterans make up about 20 percent of the suicide deaths in the U.S., even though they make up only 1 percent of the population.
■ New research suggests a servicemember suicide increases the risk of suicide among his or her family members.
102 MILITARY OFFICER SEPTEMBER 2013
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