USA — Army Releases May Suicide Data

The Army released sui­cide data today for the month of May. Among active-duty sol­diers, there were nine poten­tial sui­cides, and all remain under inves­ti­ga­tion. For April, the Army report­ed 10 poten­tial sui­cides among active-duty sol­diers. Since the release of that report, four have been con­firmed as sui­cides, and six remain under investigation. 

Dur­ing May 2010, among reserve com­po­nent sol­diers who were not on active duty, there were 12 poten­tial sui­cides: two have been con­firmed and 10 remain under inves­ti­ga­tion. For April, among that same group, there were sev­en total sui­cides. Of those, two were con­firmed as sui­cides and five are pend­ing deter­mi­na­tion of the man­ner of death. 

“The sum­mer sea­son tra­di­tion­al­ly rep­re­sents the Army’s peak tran­si­tion time­frame as sol­diers, fam­i­lies and Depart­ment of the Army civil­ians relo­cate between com­mands and instal­la­tions,” said Col. Chris Philbrick, direc­tor, Army Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Task Force. “This tur­bu­lent peri­od often com­pounds the amount of stress faced by our Army and mem­bers of the Army fam­i­ly. Every­one needs to know that despite an increase of anx­i­ety or pres­sure, help is read­i­ly avail­able, espe­cial­ly dur­ing these tran­si­tion periods.” 

“We are mak­ing every effort to main­tain con­tact with sol­diers, fam­i­lies and civil­ians and sus­tain the Army’s efforts to pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive behav­ioral health resources and sup­port,” Philbrick said. “We sim­ply can­not afford to have any mem­ber of the Army fam­i­ly fall through the cracks when deal­ing with the addi­tion­al stress transition.” 

The Army has iden­ti­fied addi­tion­al cri­sis inter­ven­tion resources avail­able to the Army com­mu­ni­ty. Sol­diers and fam­i­lies in need of cri­sis assis­tance are strong­ly encour­aged to con­tact Mil­i­tary One­Source or the Defense Cen­ter of Excel­lence for Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury Out­reach Cen­ter (DCoE). Trained con­sul­tants are avail­able from both orga­ni­za­tions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)