How Many Warnings Does The Army Need Before Preventing A Suicide?

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Posted on 5th January 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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How many soldiers have to die at their own hand, despite their pleadings for help and warnings to others, before the military takes them seriously?

The New York Times Sunday did a Page One story on yet another apparent military suicide, in a story headlined “Several Warnings, Then a Soldier’s Lonely Death.” It is the story of Staff Sgt. David Senft, 27, who was found dead Nov. 15 with a single bullet wound to his head, sitting in an SUV parked at an American air base in Afghanistan.   

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/world/asia/02suicide.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

The Army characterized Senft’s death as resulting from “injuries sustained in a non-combat related incident,” according to The Times. The paper then went on to chronicle the tragedy of Senft’s case, and how the Army may have prevented his death.

First, the Army sent Senft to Afghanistan after he had tried to commit suicide twice at Fort Campbell, Ky. When he got to Afghanistan, Senft was having so many mental difficulties that the Army took away his weapon and made him get counseling. Senft killed himself with a weapon he stole from his roommate.

Senft’s father asks some pointed, and logical, questions about the Army and his son. Why did the Army deploy Senft to combat when he was suicidal? Why did the Army leave him there when he was obviously still having mental problems?

Senft had come from a troubled family life. And the horror of his his experience as crew chief for a Black Hawk helicopter during a tour in Iraq haunted him, according to The Times. 

The Army told The Times that it is still investigating Senft’s death and how the Army handled his case. It’s too bad the military had not given his case that kind of scrutiny before he put a bullet in his brain.       

  

New Jersey Mother, Whose Veteran Son Killed Himself, Outlines What VA Must Do To End Suicides

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Posted on 18th July 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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 Last week  a New Jersey woman named Linda Bean trekked to the nation’s capitol to testify about her son’s suicide two years ago. Army Sgt. Coleman Bean, 26, killed himself after coming back to the states following two tours of duty in Iraq.

 Bean puts the blame for her son’s death squarely on the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA is not accommodating to vets, she charged, endlessly delaying appointments with her own son, for example. 

Bean was brief, but powerful, in her five minutes of testimony last Wednesday to the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, getting a standing ovation, according to The Star-Ledger of Newark.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/nj_mother_of_veteran_who_kille.html

“There are veterans who will tell you that they have had to scrap and right for every VA service they’ve received,” Bean told the subcommittee, The Ledger reported.

She also spoke of the difficulties of using the VA’s website to garner information and get help.

 I’ve been following the topic of soldier suicides because of the enormous number of American troops who are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with brain injury, “shell shock”  if you will.  Our soldiers are not just suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, they are suffering from brain injury — subtle or traumatic — and one of its typical after effects, depression. 

You might not think to link brain injury and depression, but I can tell you that many of my brain-injury clients become clinically depressed. So suicide is always a concern of mine. And the VA has been aware of the suicide issue with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and been trying to address it, as long ago as 2007.

http://veterans.house.gov/Media/File/110/12-12-07fc/12-12-07fcqfrvaresponse.htm

Right now veterans and service members comprise about 20 percent of the 30,000 U.S. suicides each year, The Ledger reported, citing VA statistics. That translated to 334 active-duty service members killing themselves last year.  

Bean’s son committed suicide two years ago, and in all fairness to the VA , it really has stepped up its assistance to vets since then. As part of an improved outreach program, the VA established a suicide hotline for soldiers. That 800-number has fielded more than 300,000 phone calls and saved 10,000, The Ledger reported.

And the VA just last weak eased its requirements for veterans to received disability payments for PTSD. We will be blogging more about that topic soon.

 But even as the military has tried to help returning veterans, it seems that those efforts are failing. The suicides continue, and some of the Army programs meant to help veterans have come under fire.

 For example, The New York Times recently did an expose of the Army’s Warrior Transition Battalian units, which were set up stateside to help veterans who had suffered serious physical and psychological damage in combat.

https://waiting.com/blog/2010/04/army-trauma-units-are-%e2%80%98worse-than-iraq%e2%80%99-one-solider-charges.html?preview=true&preview_id=386&preview_nonce=2862b2d308

The Times reported that the veterans in these units are essentially being warehoused, not getting counseling and being tormented by those who watch over them. One vet called the transition units worse than Iraq. That doesn’t sound like a set-up that will make a veteran happy to be home. It sounds like a situation that might make a veteran put a gun to his or her head.

And the military appears to be putting its head in the sand in terms of determining which returning veterans sustained brain damage during their tours of duty. U.S. Today recently reported that the military has failed to comply with a directive that they test soldiers before and after they are in combat for brain injury.

https://waiting.com/blog/2010/06/611.html

If the military knows a soldier has brain injury, it can give him or her psychological help, or medications, to ensure he or she don’t get depressed and take their own lives. 

Bean made some sound recommendations to the VA, including suggesting that it establish a group of veterans within the agency to help those just coming home navigate the system’s bureaucracy and red tape. And these veterans can act as a support group for returning troops trying to acclimate themselves to life in the states again.

She also recommended that the VA work more closely with civilian counseling organizations. But the VA doesn’t seem very interested in working with people outside the agency.

For example, the new VA guidelines for PTSD disability mandate that a military doctor, not a civilan physician, certify that a veteran qualifies for benefits. Veterans’ group have criticized that provision in the new disability directive. 

https://waiting.com/blog/2010/07/veterans-not-satisfied-with-new-regulation-on-ptsd-and-collecting-disability-benefits.html?preview=true&preview_id=734&preview_nonce=4b79cc5dc8

Fort Campbell training soldiers to prevent suicide

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Posted on 27th May 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 5/27/2009

KRISTIN M. HALL
Associated Press Writer

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) — Regular duties are suspended for three days at Fort Campbell, which leads the Army in suicides this year, so commanders can identify and help soldiers who are struggling with the stress of war and most at risk for killing themselves.

The post began a stand down on Wednesday so soldiers can focus on suicide prevention training in the wake of 11 confirmed suicides by Fort Campbell soldiers this year. More deaths are being investigated as possible suicides.

“This is not a place where Fort Campbell and the 101st Airborne Division want to be,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen Townsend. “We don’t want to lead the Army in this statistic.”

From January to March, the installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee line averaged one suicide per week, Townsend said. After an Army-wide suicide prevention campaign in started in March, there were no suicides for six weeks, he said.

“But last week we had two. Two in a week,” Townsend said.

In a series of addresses this week, Townsend will speak to each of the approximately 25,000 soldiers assigned to the division. He told more than 4,000 soldiers Wednesday morning that the suicides must stop.

“Someone here has had thoughts or is having thoughts about hurting themselves,” Townsend said. “Or you know someone who is.”

Army leaders have been developing new guidance for commanders to help installations like Fort Campbell deal with rising suicide rates. Across the Army, suicides from January through March rose to a reported 56 — 22 confirmed and 34 still being investigated and pending confirmation.

The Army has said that soldier suicides reached the highest rate on record in 2008. Officials said the deaths in 2008 would amount to a rate of 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers, which is higher than the civilian rate, when adjusted to reflect the Army’s younger and male-heavy demographics.

Frequent deployments by the division since 2001 have contributed to the stress suffered by soldiers at Fort Campbell, said Col. Ken Brown, the head of chaplains on the installation.

The three 101st Airborne combat brigades have gone through at least three tours in Iraq. The 3rd Brigade also served seven months in Afghanistan, early in the war, and the 4th Brigade has just returned from a 15-month tour in Afghanistan.

“We’ve been at war at this installation for seven years,” Brown said. “I think that has a cumulative effect across the force.”

Fort Campbell leaders have asked soldiers on the post to look out for each other and paired them up through a “battle buddy” system. Unit leaders are also reviewing and updating lists of soldiers who may be a risk for suicide and are reminding them they can seek help from resources such as a chaplain or a hospital.

But Army officials say many soldiers are afraid that seeking help for mental health issues will hurt their career or make them appear weak to their fellow soldiers. Townsend urged soldiers to speak up.

“You wouldn’t hesitate to seek medical attention for a physical wound or injury,” Townsend said. “Don’t hesitate to seek medical attention for a psychological injury.”

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Feds pay suicidal Air Force veteran’s family

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Posted on 7th November 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 11/7/2008

Feds pay suicidal Air Force veteran’s family

HONOLULU (AP) _ The federal government has paid $800,000 to the family of a suicidal Air Force veteran who jumped to his death from Tripler Army Medical Center after his pleas to be admitted went unheeded.

Family members alleged staff at Tripler Army Medical Center failed to acknowledge the seriousness of his condition. Attorney Rick Fried said retired Master Sgt. Robert C. Roth, 50, was not hospitalized when he made requests to be admitted.

He suffered from bipolar disorder, had a long history of depression, and committed suicide last year by jumping off the 10th floor of the hospital on the morning of Jan. 2. A month earlier, Fried said, he had suffered severe depression and expressed to the staff that he was suicidal.

The family sued the U.S. government, alleging that Tripler was careless and negligent in its care of Roth.

The settlement means a trial scheduled for next month will not be held.

Roth worked as a clerk in the records section of the hospital.

Tripler’s commander, in a statement, extended the hospital’s sympathy to the Roth family.

“Our command and well-trained staff are committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure an incident similar to this never happens again,” said Army Brig. Gen. Steve Jones.

If Tripler had admitted Roth on either of two instances in December 2006 when he went to the hospital emergency room seeking help, he would have been hospitalized for a short period, said Rick Fried, the family’s attorney.

He would have had his antidepressant medication adjusted and would have been OK, Fried said.

Instead, Roth, frustrated after waiting about three hours without being seen by a psychologist on the second visit, told hospital personnel that he planned to commit suicide by jumping from the top floor of Tripler, according to Army records and Fried. Several days later he did precisely that.

On his first visit, Roth waited more than five hours and never saw a psychiatrist, only a physician training to be one, records show. He told medical personnel he planned to jump off a Makapuu cliff, but his request to be admitted was ignored, Fried said.

Fried said Roth’s depression started to worsen in late 2006, his antidepressant medication was improperly adjusted by his Tripler physician and twice he showed up at the ER wanting to be admitted. Both times he packed an overnight bag thinking he would be.

The second time he left the ER angry — and against the advice of medical personnel — because he wasn’t being treated and had been told patients more sick were being seen before him, according to his family and Fried.

Fried said Tripler did not have a written policy for dealing with suicidal patients.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Army general to investigate recruiter suicides

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Posted on 7th November 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 11/7/2008

By MICHELLE ROBERTS
Associated Press Writer


SAN ANTONIO (AP) _ The Army has agreed to investigate a disproportionate cluster of suicides among recruiters in an East Texas battalion, as well as allegations by other soldiers and family members that they were pressured to cover up serious problems in the battalion, Army Secretary Pete Geren said.

Seventeen Army recruiters have committed suicide nationwide since 2001, but four of them were from the Houston Recruiting Battalion, which recruits soldiers from East Texas. A fifth Houston-area soldier killed himself, but he was assigned to the Army’s Future Soldier Training Program.

There are 38 recruiting battalions nationwide with 8,400 recruiters.

The Army’s suicide rate has been climbing as the war in Iraq has forced multiple and longer deployments.

Last year, the Army’s suicide rate was 18.1 per 100,000, the highest since the service started keeping records in 1980. That’s still lower than the U.S. civilian rate of 19.5 per 100,000.

The investigation was sought by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who heard from soldiers and family members after the Houston Chronicle reported the cluster of suicides earlier this year.

Brig. Gen. Frank Turner has been assigned to investigate the recruiter suicides and the cover-up allegations, Geren told Cornyn in a letter dated Monday.

A chaplain, psychologist and equal employment officer talked to members of the Houston battalion in mid-October, said Douglas Smith, spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command. Their report is not yet complete, but Smith said Friday he doesn’t know of any obstruction.

Cornyn noted in an interview Friday that the all-volunteer service is under heavy pressure to sign recruits and retain soldiers during two wars.

Many recruiters are soldiers with recent combat experience who may be suffering from stress and now must persuade high school students and other young people to join an Army at war.

The hours can be long and many work in offices in shopping malls or elsewhere far from Army posts. Cornyn said those conditions isolate soldiers, particularly ones who have recently returned from combat, and may make many of the Army’s support services out of reach.

Cornyn, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, complained to Geren in a letter that current recruiters and family members felt some battalion leaders were “working to cover up serious problems that evidence a toxic command climate and poor unit morale.”

Cornyn told The Associated Press on Friday that he’s concerned about the Houston battalion but noted “it also has implications militarywide.”

Cornyn has questioned the policy that places recruiting commanders without combat experience over hardened combat veterans.

Geren acknowledged in a letter dated Nov. 3 that some recruiting commanders don’t have combat experience, but he said Army officials don’t believe the lack of experience makes them ill-equipped to mentor and supervise combat veterans assigned to the recruiting command.

Geren said he directed Army officials to ensure recruiters have full access to the Army’s mental health services.

Cornyn had hoped for an independent investigation rather than one directed by the Army, but he said he is willing to give commanders a chance to handle it themselves.

“I’m hopeful they’ll take the matter seriously,” he said. “We’ll see whether the product is something that’s credible and demonstrates that they’ve taken it seriously.”

The senator said he also plans to seek a Senate hearing on the issue.

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On the Net:

Houston Recruiting Battalion: http://www.usarec.army.mil/5thbde/4ebn/

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn: http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.