There were 99 Army suicides last year - nearly half of them soldiers who hadn't reached their 25th birthdays, about a third of them serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.
That comes from an August 16, 2007 article at Forbes.com (http://urltea.com/1af1). Now, what's interesting is how the likely cause of said suicides is framed. Check this out:
Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general, told a Pentagon press conference that the primary reason for suicide is "failed intimate relationships, failed marriages."
She said that although the military is worried about the stress caused by repeat deployments and tours of duty that have been stretched to 15 months, it has not found a direct relationship between suicides and combat or deployments.
"However, we do know that frequent deployments put a real strain on relationships, especially on marriages. So we believe that part of the increase is related to the increased stress in relationships," she said.
Sheesh. So, what's the frakkin' difference? The soldier is depressed and directly or indirectly it's because of war. It seems disingenuous to go and say "Well, the war had nothing to do with it, but the war might have something to do with what did have something to do with the soldier taking his own life."
Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make here is that war can have unintended consequences even among the "winners." Men and women come back from war pretty much mentally scarred in many cases and in some cases they come back and simply can't deal with life. Prices like these are not usually included when you tally the cost of the war. If they were, perhaps we'd have more hesitation before going into war. Not only will lives be lost in battle, but lives will be ruined back home. The soldier comes back, takes his/her own life and the rest of their family must go on knowing they lost a family member to suicide and not the war. One death is heroic the other just tragic.
One other quick point: this is one of the many negative things we Americans don't want to face about our way of life--that to protect it we must cause death, destruction, and tear people's lives apart--even the lives of American citizens.
Orignal From: 99 US ARMY SOLDIER SUICIDES IN 2006
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