An army wife speaks out about the surge of suicides in those serving in the military and about what is currently going on at the Fort Campbell, KY base because of the suicide scares...
Also includes comments by Polly Coe, a Clarksville, TN based mental health therapist who works with the troops.
Even as Ms. Boen was preparing this article, the issue of soldier suicide exploded on the news front again with these statistics:
Five soldiers attempt suicide everyday
2100 soldiers attempted suicide in 2007, up from 350 in 2002 [before Iraq War] — CNN 2.3.08
Last fall, there was an article in the Leaf Chronicle [10.12.07] titled, Fort Campbell General stresses suicide prevention. It reported that with nine suicides for the year, and 16 deaths pending investigation, and with three suicides in the last two weeks, the general said:
"This is unacceptable and it must stop. I want everyone associated with Fort Campbell to take pause, and to focus on what we can do as a community to reverse this trend."
According to the Fort Campbell Courier, [12.20.07 vol. 43, no. 51], Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, Commanding General at Fort Campbell, made suicide prevention his priority since he took command in 2006. He expanded the "buddy care" program, which has soldiers watching out for each other, to "unit watch," a program used by commanders when a soldier has suicidal thoughts. Now he is training families to recognize signs through "Building Family Resiliency" programs. He was quoted as saying:
"The individual has got to take personal responsibility. They have got to take responsibility for themselves and realize that they can save their own lives. It comes back to the individual."
An army wife spoke out about these articles and about what was going on at the base because of the suicide scares. This is her view, in her words:
I only became aware of these "programs" when there was apparently an increase in suicides in the November/December time frame.
At first I thought they had to be kidding.
This is the rest of what she had to say, in her own words.