MILITARY SUICIDE RATE UPDATE

At Jack's suggestion in the comments to my previous post, I did a quick Googling on the issue of military suicide rates, and came up with this Chicago Tribune piece on the issue, from December:

Army's Suicide Rate Has Outside Experts Alarmed
By Michael Martinez
Chicago Tribune

Sunday 28 December 2003

(...)

LUFKIN, Texas - Army Spc. Joseph Suell had been distressed before. He missed his wife and their daughters so badly last year that he was granted a short visit home from his yearlong assignment in South Korea.

It was a different story this year. In March, five months after completing his Korean tour and right after re-enlisting, the 24-year-old was sent to Kuwait and then Iraq.

The day after Father's Day, Suell died in Iraq, reportedly after taking a bottle of Tylenol. His death was classified as "nonhostile," but a military chaplain told Suell's wife, Rebecca, it was a suicide.

Suell's death comes as the military is investigating the growing number of suicides by American forces in the Persian Gulf region. Since the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq last spring, 18 soldiers and two Marines have committed suicide, most of them after major combat was declared over May 1, the military said.

The Army is concerned about the deaths. Outside experts have said the rate is alarmingly high compared with the military's average suicide rates. A report by a 12-member team of military and civilian mental health professionals dispatched to Iraq in October to evaluate mental health of soldiers is expected to be released after the holidays, officials said.

(...)

Suicide experts with military backgrounds say the 20 suicides in the Iraq conflict are a high number. Using the military's 12-month rate of a dozen suicides for each 100,000 soldiers, self-inflicted deaths this year in Iraq should amount to no more than 13 at this point, according to Dr. Paul Ragan, who was a Navy psychiatrist for 11 years and is a Vanderbilt University associate professor.

Last year, the Army reported a 12-month suicide rate of 11.1 for each 100,000 soldiers and is expected to report 12 for each 100,000 this year, matching the military's overall rate.

The current count of 20, with the Army investigating more deaths as possible suicides, is worrisome, Ragan said.

"My educated, military, psychiatric guess is that 20 is definitely high, and it's something that needs attention. You don't sit around for months and months and see what happens," Ragan said. "In this case, there is a legitimate concern to move on this."

"If you extrapolate to a full year," added David Rudd, president of the American Association of Suicidology and a former Army psychologist, "it would seem to be potentially high."

On the other hand,

While Army officials acknowledge that the suicide figure appears high, the overall number of 61 such deaths for that branch this calendar year is about average, officials said.

The Army's 130,000 service members in Iraq represent almost all the U.S. force there, an Army spokesman said.

The 61 Army suicides in this year compare with 68 Army suicides last year, 49 in 2001 and 63 in 2000, the military said. The Army's worst period in the past 13 years was 1991, the year of the Persian Gulf war, when it reported 102 suicides.

Figures before 1990 were unavailable, military officials said.

"Even with Iraq, our numbers at the end of this year aren't going to be out [of ] line with what they have been in previous years," said Army spokeswoman Martha Rudd, who is not related to David Rudd.

Is there an explanation for this?

"Traditionally in wars, when soldiers are fighting in combat, there are very rarely suicides, because their survival instinct is active and their adrenaline is flowing," Martha Rudd said. "But once the [war] ceases, at first you are very busy in the aftermath ... setting up where you are, but then eventually you have time on your hands, and you are miserable where you are."

That seems like a good outline answer to this riddle. Certainly, it's been a very long time since the US Army had a large-scale post-war occupation similar to this. (Afghanistan notwithstanding)

So from there, the question is whether it was fair for Rooney to bring up the statistic, given the seemingly logical explanation given. I'd say not, but for reasons other than the one Jack supplies: Regardless of one's position on the war and occupation, the current situation for America's troops there is a unique one, for which there is little recent grounds for comparison. From there, one could have an expansive discussion on the decisions made by the administration and others that led to our troops being in that position, and that would be truly stimulating indeed. But in his editorial, Rooney doesn't acknowledge the difference between the "major combat" and "occupation" roles of the military, and how they might affect morale differently, so in referring to the rise in the military suicide rate, Rooney needs to "unpack his answer", as one of my old political science profs likes to say.

All that being said, using the military suicide rate as part of an argument that the troops "aren't heroes" is pretty damn lame.