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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 11:23 AM        At least 17 U.S. troops have committed suicide in Iraq
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...suicides_x.htm

At least 17 U.S. troops have committed suicide in Iraq; Army seeks answers

Rebecca Suell wants answers, and not the ones the U.S. Army is giving her.

Why does the Army keep calling the last letter her husband sent to her, the one he mailed from Iraq on June 15, a suicide note? Can taking a bottle of Tylenol really kill you? And how did he get his hands on a bottle of Tylenol in the middle of the desert anyway?

The questions may differ, but experts say the desperate search for answers — and the denial — are usually the same.

Since April, the military says, at least 17 Americans — 15 Army soldiers and two Marines — have taken their own lives in Iraq. The true number is almost certainly higher. At least two dozen non-combat deaths, some of them possible suicides, are under investigation according to an AP review of Army casualty reports.

No one in the military is saying for the record that the suicide rate among forces in Iraq is alarming. But Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top American military commander in Iraq, was concerned enough, according to the Army Surgeon General's office, to have ordered a 12-person mental health assessment team to Iraq to see what more can be done to prevent suicides and to help troops better cope with anxiety and depression.

Army spokesman Martha Rudd said the assessment team returned from Iraq two weeks ago, but that it will take several weeks to come up with recommendations. Until then, she said, no one on the team will have anything to say to the press.

Whether the suicide rate among the troops should be considered high is impossible to say because there is nothing to compare it with, experts say. What would be considered a "normal" rate for an all-voluntary military force of men and women on extensive deployments to the Middle East, under constant pressure from guerrillas who use terror tactics?

Rudd said that by the Army's calculations, its suicide rate in Iraq is roughly 12 per 100,000 — well below the civilian suicide rate for U.S. men of 17.5 suicides per 100,000. The comparison is misleading, however.

The civilian rate is an annual figure, and the Iraq figure covers only about seven months. Furthermore, the troops have not yet spent their first holiday season in Iraq — a time when the risk of suicide is traditionally at its highest.

The troops in Iraq include thousands of women, who typically have a lower suicide rate than men. And the Army figure does not include possible suicides among the non-combat deaths yet to be explained.

Whatever the 12-month suicide figure turns out to be, the Army is not satisfied that it is low enough. The Army has an extensive suicide prevention program, with soldiers "all the way down the chain" of command trained to recognize the warning signs of suicide and how best to intervene, Rudd said.

"Zero suicides is our goal," she said. "We may not get there, but we're going to try."

In all, 422 U.S. troops have died in Iraq. The military has characterized 129 of the deaths as "non-hostile," including 105 since President Bush officially declared major hostilities over on May 1. Most if not all the confirmed suicides occurred after May 1, according to the military. According to an AP analysis of military reports, non-combat deaths include 13 caused by a weapons discharge, two from drowning, one from breathing difficulties and one described only as "medical." An additional 13 are listed with no cause given.

For Rebecca Suell and many of the families of soldiers who are believed to have killed themselves in Iraq, answers are as hard to come by as sleep.

Night after night, Suell said, she lies awake asking herself the same questions.

Why, as sad and as tired of Iraq as he said he was, would her husband take his own life when she had just told him how much she loved him, how much the kids missed him and needed him?

Why would a man who loved the Lord so much — who told her on the day he died that he felt he was getting closer and closer to God every day — defy his Lord's strictures against taking his own life?

But the more she sobs, the clearer it becomes that Joseph D. Suell, posthumously promoted to sergeant, was in crisis the day he died — so desperate to come home that he even asked his wife to talk to his commanding officer.

And she did.

She told him, she said, how life was so hard without her husband, how going to nursing school and working at Wal-Mart and trying to raise three children, all at the same time, was too much for her to bear alone.

She told him how her husband had no sooner finished serving a year and half in Korea than he was sent to Iraq, that in five years as a soldier she had been with him less than 18 months.

She told his commanding officer that their youngest daughter didn't even know her father, that he was away the day she was born, and that all her husband really wanted was to be at home with his family in Lufkin, Texas, for Christmas.

Just a month or two, she begged, and then you can have him back.

His commanding officer, she said, told her that the Army was doing everything it could to get him back to her but that he couldn't promise it would happen in time for Christmas.

The Army will not talk about Suell's death, nor does it publish, out of concern for the families, the names of soldiers who have killed themselves in Iraq.

But Rudd, the Army spokesman, said it is not unusual for family members to question whether a loved one's death was a suicide. It is for that reason, she said, that it often takes months to complete an investigation into a soldiers death.

For the sake of the family, Rudd said, "we need to be absolutely certain."

In many respects, Joseph Suell does not fit the profile of a soldier who commits suicide. Typically, mental health experts said, such suicides are triggered by a "Dear John" message from home.

Even among civilians, one of the common triggers "is a rupture of a relationship," said David Shaffer, a Columbia University psychiatrist and former consultant for the Department of Defense.

But there are always deeper reasons, usually far murkier and far more complex, experts said. Like the wars they fight, no two soldiers who commit suicide face the same mix of potentially deadly stress.

"In most previous conflicts you went, you fought, you came home," Rudd said. "In this one they went, they fought, they're still there."

Rudd said she knows of no studies that show a definitive correlation between length of deployment and military suicide rates. But Michelle Kelley, a psychiatrist who studies deployment-related stress for the Navy, said the longer the deployment, the greater the strain on a relationship with a loved one.

The military, she said, needs to be especially watchful for anxiety and depression among its troops in the weeks ahead. For civilian and soldier alike, the Christmas season and depression go hand in hand, Kelley said. But for a soldier, she added, a weapon is always at hand.

Soldiers, she said, must be encouraged to seek help when they need it. For that reason, she expressed concern about the case of Pfc. Georg-Andreas Pogany.

The soldier, assigned to a Green Beret interrogation team, began throwing up after seeing the severed body of an Iraqi civilian three days after being deployed to Iraq. After seeking help for a self-described anxiety attack, he was ordered back to the United States and became the first soldier since Vietnam charged with cowardice — a charge later reduced to dereliction of duty.

That, Kelley said, is "the last thing you want to do" if you want soldiers to seek help in times of stress.... You need to make it clear to those people who have witnessed something traumatic that they need to talk about it — that they won't be stigmatized for doing so and that it's not going to follow them through their military career."

Shaffer, the Columbia University psychiatrist, said it is not that simple. A commanding officer's decision to file a cowardice charge might, in some circumstances, even be a morale boost for the soldiers under his command, he said.

Shaffer warned against drawing any conclusions based on the number of suicides in Iraq.

Suicide rates vary greatly over time, he said, and also vary with race, ethnicity, religion and other factors. African Americans, for example, have a lower suicide rate than the general U.S. population. So do those who describe themselves as deeply religious. Drug use, alcoholism and a low education level, on the other hand, are correlated with higher suicide rates.

A comparison of the suicide rate among troops in Iraq with troops in other wars such as Vietnam are meaningless, he said, because the makeup of the fighting forces were so different. (According to the Army, there are no reliable statistics on the suicide rate during the Vietnam War.)

Shaffer said there is also some evidence that those who serve in the Army for a long time have a higher suicide rate than civilians. This is probably because "some longstanding servicemen do develop alcohol problems over time, and alcohol use is very strongly related to suicide," he said.

Rudd, the Army spokesman, also adds something else to the mix:

"Technology today allows people to connect with the home front much more quickly and intimately and often than in previous conflicts," she said. That's not necessarily a good thing if the news from home is bad. Young people can be impulsive, she said, "and Dear John letters and things like that can be very upsetting to a young soldier."

For Rebecca Suell, who so badly wanted her husband back, there are still only questions.

Why, she demands to know, her voice rising in anger, did the Army send her husband to Iraq after he had mangled his arm in Korea? After they discovered that his asthma was getting worse?

She has taken her 4-year-old daughter, Jada, to the cemetery, she said. "I've told her, 'That's where your daddy lives now — right next to your grandfather. And that's where we will all live someday, next to the people we love most.' But she doesn't understand."

So what is she supposed to tell Jada, Rebecca Suell said, the next time she asks: "When is my daddy coming home?'"


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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Zhukov Zhukov is offline
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 11:49 AM       
If I had wanted to read a sop story, I would have. Bah.

nothing to compare it with...
Maybe.... Vietnam? Even though they are totaly different wars.

...More Vietnam vets killed themselves after the war than died during.
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 11:55 AM       
Then those wouldn't be calculated in war casualties, now would they?

And I think the word you're looking for is "sob."
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 12:01 PM       
Wah wah wah.

No, they wouldn't be calculated in war casualties. So remember, after the iraq war, when 50 people have comited suicide (or whatever), that hundreds will then kill themselves, and they wont be taken into consideration for official counting.
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 12:38 PM       
Yeah Zukov, but I'll bet if you posted some sob story about black bloc anarchists getting beaten in Miami, you'd expect us to all go "wah wah wah," "no justice, no peace," right sport?

But when human life is being lost out of nothing more than pure desparation, in service to their country, it's not a big deal to you. 17 less "imperialists," right?
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 12:48 PM       
Really Zhukov...
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 02:11 PM       
Anyone mentally unstable enough to kill himself is not someone you want fighting with you and possibly protecting your life. For the sake of the surviving troops, I say good riddance.
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 02:22 PM       
Say, that's kind of dumb. I mean, the lack of compassion isn't exactly striking, but that's more stupid than usual.

Put people in Mortal fear of their lives for an extended periods of time, offer than no speciffic time when it will be over, and mostly they do crazy things. They kill the enemy, they kill civillians, they kill each other and they kill themselves. True, most folks will settle for just killing the enemy, but I promise you, they're a lot of these kids are halfway crazy, not becuase of mental problems they had before they shipped over, but becuase of the mental problems many, many people would develope if you exposed them to the conditions and uncertanties our soldiers are facing in Iraq. You want to sort ourt all the folks who might do something really niuts? Bring 'em all home.
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 03:49 PM       
You don't have to be in a war to kill yourself.

And if you kill yourself because of a war, you shouldn't be in the Army.
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 05:00 PM       
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And if you kill yourself because of a war, you shouldn't be in the Army.
That's true, but only in the case of a volunteer army. In the case of WWII (or any other war in which conscription was introduced), it is understandable that there would be more suicides, because some people are forced to join the army who, under normal circumstances, wouldn't do that. You're right in this case though; I suspect a lot of the people who "can't take the stress" were people who thought the war would be swift and bloodless, they were going to do more marching in ticker-tape parades than getting shot at, etc.
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 05:10 PM       
I would suggest that no one knows in advance what being in a war will do to them.

I would also suggest that a lack of empathy is nothing to be proud of.
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 06:42 PM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bleeding Heart Burbank
You want to sort ourt all the folks who might do something really niuts? Bring 'em all home.
I say bring 'em all home anyway.

However, as you said, the crazies are in the minority. And I'm not talking about solving the problem of having them around; I'm saying it's good for the rest that they did something about it themselves.

They don't deserve my sympathy - if most soldiers (the normal ones) don't kill themselves or go nuts (at least not until after the war's over), there can be no justification for those who do, who are in the same circumstances but lack the constitution to keep their heads in order. They are inferior, at least in that respect, and should either a) go to war and subsequently kill themselves to increase the mean quality of the human race or b) show some brains and not put themselves there in the first place, since we do still have a volunteer army and within that army are plenty of tracks that don't involve combat or placement near the front.

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I would suggest that no one knows in advance what being in a war will do to them.
By this point in history, anyone in the United States of legal age for military has heard a veteran say, either on television, in print, or in person, that war is an absolutely horrific experience and nothing even compares to it. Raise your hand if you haven't seen Saving Private Ryan or maybe Full Metal Jacket. Volunteer soldiers going into combat roles should imagine their closest friends dying slow and grisly deaths, and anyone who can remotely conceive that his mind will break under the stress should reconsider his decision. "I didn't see it coming" is not a suitable excuse.

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I would also suggest that a lack of empathy is nothing to be proud of.
I don't lack empathy. I'm just choosy.
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Old Nov 23rd, 2003, 07:39 PM       
Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with the war. I think it might very will hurt our defence more than it really helped, not to mention our pockets. But the war does do a couple of things that are (arguably) good; one of those being a message sent that you don't join the military unless you are willing to fight.
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Old Nov 24th, 2003, 10:21 AM       
The milk of Human kindness runs thin.
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Old Nov 24th, 2003, 10:36 AM       
First of all, If I posted an article on an anarchist getting his pants kicked I would expect everyone to have a good laugh.

Second; There is no need to make fun of me. I accept the word sob. Sorry.

b) "Wah wah wah". This was a joke - Who else says "Wah wah wah"?

Fourth; I called this a 'sob' story becasue half the article is spent making me feel sorry for a battling mother juggling a career and a family. Although that is not to say I don't feel sorry for her.

Fifth; I don't feel sorry for the womans husband - not only had he been killing in iraq, but he had been killing in Kosovo as well. A 19 year old boy signing up on a whim, yes, but not a career soldier. It's sad that these people commited suicide - it is a good indication that they didn't want to be there, and if they don't want to be there then I support them. I would prefer that they go home if they are depressed, not kill themselves. If they are happy to be in Iraq... Well the US will not leave voluntarily...
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Old Nov 24th, 2003, 12:48 PM       
Well, thanks to this thread, we now know who the assholes are.
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Old Nov 24th, 2003, 01:03 PM       
well, thanks to this thread, we now know what a hypocritical jackass Zhukov is.

I think things like this happen in every combat situation, but with so little popular support for the war it's really being expounded upon.
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Old Nov 25th, 2003, 11:05 AM       
Sorry everyone, I didn't mean to say I want to see the US lose, I apologise. I wish no US soldiers would die and I wish no iraqis would die. I am praying to God to ask him to make sure nobody dies.

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hypocritical jackass
That stings. How am I a hypocrite?
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Old Nov 25th, 2003, 05:05 PM       
i missed it zhukov.

but i gotta say war terrorizes both sides of the conflicts..just like vietnam, and especially with a guerilla style war, a blending of civilian and military attackers is a horrific expierience..like a nuke it's another of those things i compare to an actual "hell on earth." The casualties our neighbors, friends, and families are suffering will be counted for many years after their return in illness and psycological damage.

Jessica lynch is a somewhat extreem example but she talks of the many many others that she was with in the mess.. i can't imagine it will be much easier for them to recover from the experience of that convoy attack.. the attack which happens on a smaller scale almost 18 times a day now. Jessica has been discharged so she is no longer counted in the wounded.. nor if for some reason dies from her war wounds or commits suicide will she be counted as a military death just as many hundreds from vietnam have not been counted or attributed to the vietnam war.
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Old Nov 26th, 2003, 03:00 AM       
I couldn't get past the oddity of using the word "troops", as in "17 troops" to speak of 17 individuals. I'm not used to a single soldier being called a troop. I had visions of a G.I. Joe Jonestown for a split second.
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Old Nov 26th, 2003, 04:10 PM       
The word "troop" was used in reference to an individual or group interchangeably when I was in the army.

This brings up a point with me that seems to run through this entire thread and that is "learning to differentiate between the military as a whole, and what the individual soldier is responsible for". Time and time again on the board, I see a lot of people railing against what the "military" does and sometimes it is not clear whether you're talking about the soldiers who are individual, REAL people (who could use a little empathy and certainly are NOT mere numbers. Please, those who served get enough of that from their superiors in the military). I would say that in a lot of what the soldiers are called to do, they rarely have a choice but still seem to answer for later and are victims to these generalized theories of the "monday morning generals. As if!! Most soldiers don't have a sense of loyalty to the ARMY as a whole but to their individual unit and rarely have the perspective of what's happening in the army "as a whole" but only what they need to do to get by. When they return, however, they're seen as the target for what evils the what the military did, as a whole, "over there". Whether this leads to suicide in some cases I cannot say (it depends on the individual, certainly) but I can't see where it would help.
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Old Nov 27th, 2003, 12:14 AM       
I'll accept that. Except, wouldn't a military planner get confused? How do they differentiate the two? Hand signals? I mean when are troops just a troop, instead of an actual troop? According to dictionary dot come the boy scouts use the word to describe a group of five or more scouts. Should I be concerned that our Boy Scouts are more specific then our military? Also, this puts a new spin on the various accounts I've read about Vietnam describing entire troops being demolished. Maybe they meant the entirety of one troop, describing the death of an individual soldier? Worse yet, this is going to put a new spin on "hang in there little trooper" pep talks. I give a lot of pep talks. Anyway, I'll get used to it. Keep on Truck.
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Old Nov 27th, 2003, 06:26 PM        Morale Booster or Nailing the Coffin Shut?
[center:0add580dd2]

Turkey in Baghdad serving turkey to US troops[/center:0add580dd2]
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Old Nov 29th, 2003, 01:03 PM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by Abcdxxxx
I'll accept that. Except, wouldn't a military planner get confused? How do they differentiate the two? Hand signals? I mean when are troops just a troop, instead of an actual troop? According to dictionary dot come the boy scouts use the word to describe a group of five or more scouts. Should I be concerned that our Boy Scouts are more specific then our military? Also, this puts a new spin on the various accounts I've read about Vietnam describing entire troops being demolished. Maybe they meant the entirety of one troop, describing the death of an individual soldier? Worse yet, this is going to put a new spin on "hang in there little trooper" pep talks. I give a lot of pep talks. Anyway, I'll get used to it. Keep on Truck.
It's just a general term in most instances unless you're talking about a specific type of unit like the cavalry wherein "troop" actually applies to a particular size of unit. Other than that, I would say that, in formal correspondence, reference to units of men (in the army) usually follow the this sequence (in ascending order):

soldier
squad (8 - 12 soldiers)
platoon (36 - 40 soldiers)
company (180 - 200 soldiers)
battalion (800 - 1000 soldiers)
brigade (5500 - 6000 soldiers)
task force (sometimes, but not always)
division (28,000 - 30,000 soldiers)
corps ( ? )
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Old Nov 29th, 2003, 09:25 PM       
Things are far more simpler in the Navy, where the letter "s" denotes plurality. . .Though I rarely dwelt upon the lingo the Army slung (I worked with two paratroopers at one point, one claiming his MOS was "Romeo" and the other proclaiming himself "X-Ray, and while this confused the fuck out of me, they seemed to think it perfectly rational), but as I understand things, a troop is a unit or body of men, a trooper is the singular entity.
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