Staff editorial: Soldiers' suicides

WE SAY The military needs to take a tough look at the mental health of U.S. soldiers

In 2010, 462 soldiers died in combat. In 2010, 468 soldiers committed suicide.

As a nation engaged in war mourns its victims, we can only hope that more do not suffer similar fates. For combat, we can hope to bring peace to the zones of conflict so more individuals do not suffer similar fates. For those who committed suicide, we must offer all we can to individuals who suffer so as to prevent them from taking their own lives.

Unfortunately, preventing suicides has proven difficult to accomplish. Suicides in the military have been difficult to pinpoint and predict. While active duty soldier deaths slowed in 2010, reservists’ suicides increased.

So while increasing counseling for victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder might be working somewhat, there are clearly other gaps that need addressing. Considering suicide took more lives than live enemy forces, for the sake of American lives, this is a problem we need to address immediately.

First, we can allow non-combat soldiers the ability to seek counseling services and other mental health treatments.

Clearly, we do not completely understand the root of these suicides. Therefore, we need to play it safe and cover all our bases by providing all military personnel some sort of mental health support.

Psychological screenings should also become more common for all military personnel, so we can predict when individuals may be considering suicide. While health checks and mental screenings are solutions, they only address the symptoms to a greater problem.

Second, we need to examine and question military culture and its effect on the individual. While scenes of war have clearly led to mental issues in soldiers who have seen battle, it is also now apparent that something inherent in military culture harms an individual’s mental well-being.

We have all read about the basics of boot camp and the strategies behind integration into combat roles. They take individual humans, strip them of their identity, break down their sense of self and erode their mental fortitude, all so they can start from scratch and remold the mind of the soldier. They then reform these people as members of units who can protect members of their troop. They instill a sense of pride, honor and courage in the totality of this new soldier.

This whole process, which has been a mold for the backbone for military training, must surely have some mental consequences. It’s time we examine these consequences and perhaps alter the system so as to preserve the individual’s mental health.

Finally, we could seek to even prevent the need for military. Focusing efforts more on international cooperation rather than international intervention would obviously end such a need for the sizeable U.S. military and thus cut down the individuals put through the mental hardships and indoctrination of war.

Overall these numbers are not only unacceptable, they are deplorable; perhaps our own institution has become a greater demon than our physical enemies. For the sake of the American soldier, for the sake of the individual human, it is time to act and take a second look at the status quo.