Admiral Mike Mullen has figured out what has stumped Army leaders - that long and repeated combat tours in the Middle East are increasing the suicide rates in the Army.
Mullen told about 680 soldiers at Fort Campbell during a town hall style meeting that soldiers are getting too little time at home after spending as much as 15 months in combat.
"I can't believe that is not a huge factor," Mullen said.
Almost all the soldiers at Mullen's town hall raised their hands when asked who had served at least two deployments. More than half indicated they served three deployments, while about a third indicated they served four deployments.
Fort Campbell, the sprawling post on the Kentucky-Tennessee line that is home to the 101st Airborne Division, reported that four soldiers killed themselves near the installation. About 14,000 soldiers from the two wars have returned to the post since October.
The Associated Press reported earlier this month that there have been seven Army suicides confirmed in January, while another 17 were under investigation. That follows a record rate in 2008. Mullen cited the number 24 in his comments Thursday, referring to January suicides.
"The rate is going straight up. The rate now exceeds the national average," Mullen said Thursday.
Maybe the economic crisis - combined with the new hope that Obama might actually finish this combat and bring troops home - will bring some fresh and new talent into the Army. Lord knows we need the manpower more than more MRAPs.
No matter how much time there is between deployments, there is simply an upper limit on how many days of stress a person can accumulate before he cracks. This is a harsh test of the all-volunteer army. Previous volunteer armies did not fight campaigns of this sort. Battles were intense, but relatively brief, with long periods of calm in between. The suddenness of an IED blast or sniper round, nerves on edge every moment in between, is not substantially different from near-continuous combat from a psychological point of view.
Tours in Vietnam ended after one year and most of the draftees chose not to go back. Those that did, that served two or three tours or more, eventually found their breaking point. I don't believe that increasing the time between deployments will alter this equation substantially. Surveys after WW2 found that about two hundred days of combat was all you could really expect from the average person. It took a Roman soldier twenty years to accumulate that much fighting. A soldier in WW2 could reach that point in two years. A postmodern insurgency can get you there in one.
Posted by: James | 23 February 2009 at 05:01 PM
Jimmy Carter started this mess by failing to support the Shah, the only friendly, stabilizing influence that existed in the region. Then he slashed our military capability to the point that he couldn't find five C-130's and eight helicopters that would stay together long enough to complete a 72-hour mission. Obama is going to do the same thing, except that Obama is faced with a shooting war. He is going to cut both manpower and materiel expenditures, so that those deployed will have inferior weapons and defense systems to work with and thus experience even greater apprehension and stress over their survival.
When are the Democrats going to learn that their obligation to this Country is not just to get re-elected? They must quit buying the votes of the uninformed with the lives of our Soldiers. The Constitution says nothing about providing for the intentionally uneducated or the lazy. It mention, quite prominently, the COMMON DEFENSE.
Posted by: A Veteran | 23 February 2009 at 09:17 PM
To: A Veteran
From: Another Veteran
What the fuck are you talking about? Jimmy Carter? Did you hear that from Rush? Have you been in a coma for the past eight years?
Posted by: Publius | 24 February 2009 at 11:28 PM