JBLM SPOKESMAN: “We Take Suicide Very Seriously”

At least 12 JBLM soldiers died from suicide in 2011, an all-time high. An internal Army investigation, prompted by senator Patty Murray, into the ‘un-diagnosing’ of PTSD in as many as 400 JBLM soldiers found that at least half had their PTSD diagnosis reversed to reduce disability compensation costs to DoD. Suicide statistics for 2012 are mostly unknown and unreported. The Army is expected to publish its annual suicide report for 2012 sometime next month. Meanwhile, senior Pentagon leaders continue a campaign to minimize the connection between PTSD, war duty and suicide in the military. According to a Nov. 18 USA Today news report, DoD continues its PR effort to link the ongoing military suicide epidemic to a struggling U.S. economy, failed relationships and suicide increases in the general population. “This is not just a military issue or an Army issue,” said Gen. Lloyd Austin III, Army vice chief of staff. “Across the military, we’re a microcosm of what’s in the nation,” said Navy Vice Adm. Martha Herb, director personnel readiness. Above, JBLM soldiers assigned to the “The Ranger Battalion” conduct ceremonies Nov. 7, 2012, at Fort Lewis to mark the end of its 15th combat deployment in the post-9/11 era. According to recently published statistics on a JBLM photo website, the Rangers spent a total of 59 months deployed to combat zones overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. (DoD)

For Tacoma Military Base, a Grim Milestone in Soldier Suicides

JBLM passed an unwelcome milestone in 2011, recording more soldier suicides than in any previous year. At least 12 soldiers took their own lives in 2011, up from nine in 2010 and nine in 2009, said Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield, a Fort Lewis PR officer assigned to the Army’s ‘Most Troubled Post.’ Suicide death totals will likely grow as the Army completes investigations ahead of expected release of its annual suicide report next month. In June, a news report cited Fort Lewis claims that no JBLM soldiers had died from suicide in the first six months of 2012.

by Adam Ashton
Tacoma News Tribune, Nov. 27, 2012

Joint Base Lewis-McChord passed an unwelcome milestone in 2011, recording more soldier suicides than in any previous year.

JBLM spokesman LtCol Gary Dangerfield.

Twelve soldiers took their own lives in 2011, up from nine in 2010 and nine in 2009, Army I Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield said. The total could grow as the Army completes investigations ahead of its annual suicide report next month.

The toll at Lewis-McChord rose despite new efforts to counsel soldiers when they come home from war, including the creation of a suicide-prevention office.

Lewis-McChord leaders plan to apply what they learned from those programs to help soldiers cope with stress at home and in their work.

“We take suicide very seriously,” Dangerfield said. “We’re going to continue to push the envelope to make sure soldiers get the resiliency training they need.”

Lewis-McChord’s surge in suicides followed its busiest year of combat deployments. More than 18,000 soldiers from the base served in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009-10.

The base is also larger than ever, with some 34,000 soldiers stationed there, up from 19,000 before the war in Iraq started.

Leaders at the base established plans to help soldiers readjust to stateside life as major homecomings took place in the summer of 2010. In early 2011, Madigan Army Medical Center reported a rising number of soldiers and military family members seeking behavioral health services, a trend officers interpreted as a sign that people were becoming more open about asking for help.

This is not just a military issue or an Army issue.

— Gen. Lloyd Austin III, Army vice chief of staff

Across the military, we’re a microcosm of what’s in the nation.

— Navy Vice Adm. Martha Herb, director personnel readiness

Read this story at its source:

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/12/30/2382161/for-tacoma-military-base-a-grim.html

Watch video news report about Fort Lewis as “most troubled” military base:

PANETTA LEGACY: Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps All Setting New Record Highs for Suicide Deaths in 2012; Reserve Statistics Unaccounted

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta jokes with Army Leader Gen Raymond Odierno at an event in Washington, D.C. Both men are in critical leadership positions at a time when historic rates of suicide continue inside the Army and DoD. Neither man has taken any action to stop the suicides in the military, which will exceed at least 330 active duty men and women in 2012.

Army, Navy Suicides at Record High

by Gregg Zoroya
USA Today, Nov. 18, 2012

Suicides among active-duty forces across the military are now occurring at a rate faster than one per day.

With six weeks left in the year, the Army and Navy are already reporting record numbers of suicides, with the Air Force and Marine Corps close to doing the same, making 2012 the worst year for military suicides since careful tracking began in 2001.

The deaths are now occurring at a rate faster than one per day. On Nov. 11, confirmed or suspected suicides among active-duty forces across the military reached 323, surpassing the Pentagon’s previous high of 310 suicides set in 2009.

Of that total, the Army accounted for 168, surpassing its high last year of 165; 53 sailors took their own lives, one more than last year.

The Air Force and Marine Corps are only a few deaths from record numbers. Fifty-six airmen had committed suicide as of Nov. 11, short of the 60 in 2010. There have been 46 suicides among Marines, whose worst year was 2009 with 52.

“We continue to reach out to and embrace those who are struggling,” the Army’s chief personnel officer, Lt. Gen. Howard Bromberg, said in a statement Sunday. “We’ve taken great strides to prevent suicides, but our work isn’t done.”

Military and medical leaders have been searching for answers to what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta describes as an “epidemic” of suicides ever since the numbers began increasing among soldiers and Marines in 2005.

Military suicide researcher David Rudd sees a direct link with the effects of combat and frequent deployments.

“The reason you’re going to see record numbers is because these wars are drawing down and these young men and women are returning home,” Rudd said. “When they return home, that’s where the conflicts surface.”

Read the rest of this story:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/18/navy-suicides-army/1702403/

MILITARY SUICIDE WIDOW: “Through Speaking Out, I Have Been Able to Heal”

A FAMILY HEALING TOGETHER: Amid Military Suicide Crisis, TAPS Answers Call

by Bill Briggs
NBC News, Oct. 25, 2012

The call she placed, and the advice she received, didn’t simply allow Rebecca Morrison to survive one of her worst days. The words she heard, she said, saved her life.

“Once you lose someone to suicide, you are so prone to suicide yourself. I got to that point. If they hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here. Every widow I’ve talked to, every family member, has felt that way. You just want to be with that person more than anything. I mean, he was my husband,” said Rebecca Morrison, a military suicide widow who lost her husband, Army Capt. Ian Morrison in March. Ian was a 2007 West Point graduate and Apache helicopter pilot at Fort Hood, Texas, when he took his own life March 21, 2012 after calling the DoD suicide hotline for help and being placed on hold for more than an hour. Later, Morrison fatally shot himself in the head. Rebecca found his body inside their Copperas Cove home. Ian was 26. “He was one of the best and brightest that the Army had,” Rebecca said. “He tried six times to get help. We need to know and we need to really take it to heart that when someone comes in to get help, that they really need it.”

Before a Fort Hood memorial service to honor her husband – an Army chopper pilot who ended his life – Morrison grabbed a scrap of paper from her nightstand, read the scrawled number, and dialed up the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS).

In that pitch-black moment, she needed answers to two desperate questions. On the other end, Kim Ruocco listened. Seven years earlier, Ruocco had lost her husband, a Marine major, to suicide.

“I can’t even breathe,” Morrison began, through sobs, from her Texas home.

“How do you breathe?”

“It will just come,” Ruocco replied from the TAPS office in Arlington, Va.

“How can I ever be happy again?”

“It doesn’t get less painful,” Ruocco told her. “After time, it just gets … less present.”

Six months later, Morrison, 25, is breathing. She’s also teaching third graders, running, riding her horse, and Thursday — remembering Ian on what would have been his 27th birthday.

She’s also speaking at anti-suicide events and launching a suicide support group near Dallas — all of it, she added, because she placed that call.

He tried six times to get help. We need to know and we need to really take it to heart that when someone comes in to get help, that they really need it.

— Rebecca Morrison, military suicide widow who lost her husband Army Capt. Ian Morrison, an Apache helicopter pilot based at Fort Hood

But with one U.S. service member committing suicide every 19 hours, it’s the breathing that Morrison mentions first when asked how TAPS helped her most.

“Once you lose someone to suicide, you are so prone to suicide yourself. I got to that point. If they hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here,” she said.

“Every widow I’ve talked to, every family member, has felt that way. You just want to be with that person more than anything. I mean, he was my husband. They’re saving the lives of the survivors.”

Read the rest of this story:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/25/14697657-a-family-healing-together-amid-military-suicide-crisis-taps-answers-the-call