Senate Approves Amendment Forcing New Unified DoD Suicide Prevention Program; House Vote Pending

Senate Passes Murray Measure to Reform Defense Suicide Prevention Programs

by Adam Ashton
The News Tribune, Dec. 5, 2012

The Senate this week passed an amendment that would reshape the Defense Department’s behavioral health and suicide prevention programs, compelling each service to adopt common practices.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., submitted the provision to the $631 billion defense authorization bill. Her amendment mirrors a bill she submitted in June.

“This is a major step forward in Congress really focusing on the issue of mental health of our service members, and it has not been done before,” Murray, the chairwoman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said today.

Her proposal seeks to standardize the Defense Department’s varied suicide prevention programs. Each branch of the armed forces takes its own approach, according to a 2011 RAND Corp. study.

The Army, Navy and Marines lack formal policies to restrict troubled service members from obtaining lethal means, and none of the armed services offer guidelines describing the benefits of reaching out for help, according to the RAND study.

Murray’s amendment also takes steps to streamline the sharing of records between the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs; it encourages both the Pentagon and the VA to hire combat veterans as peer counselors for service members in behavioral health programs; and it expands access to behavioral health programs for the families of service members.

“It really is prevention,” she said. “It helps us by reaching out to the family members who are on the front lines, and the peer-to-peer counseling, which we know is a really important part, but is not part of the services today,” she said.

Suicides in the military started climbing considerably in 2005, and the trend has not abated despite major investments in new programs and outreach efforts across the services.

This year, the number of suspected Army suicides reached 166 by October, surpassing the 2012 total of 165.

Murray’s amendment has one more hurdle to being adopted. It has to go to a review by the House Armed Services Committee before the House and Senate can negotiate the differences between their separate defense bills.

Read the rest of this story:

http://blog.thenewstribune.com/military/2012/12/05/senate-passes-murray-measure-to-reform-defense-suicide-prevention-programs/

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/