In researching to get photos and news links for my "Fallen" website today I came across an article discussing the fact one of the recent casualties was a suicide.
I went back and read the DoD news release from when he died. It was a standard-wording "died from non-combat related injuries" and "the incident is under investigation".
There are quite a few such press releases. In fact, another soldier had the identical press release on the same day; a news article about him said he was taken to Germany with severe head injury; the army had kept him alive but informed the family he was brain dead and they pulled the plug. Seems strange to have such massive head injury in a non-combat related incident that can't be explained. If he fell off a roof onto his head, I think they'd say that. They do describe various accidents like vehicle rollover and such.
The article says the suicide rate for military is almost twice that of civilians. They don't give numbers for 2006.
Here's the article:
http://iraqnam.blogspot.com/2007/01/michael-j-crutchfield-takes-own-life.html Crutchfield's death comes after an increase in military suicides and a report released last week by a team of mental health specialists whose key recommendations included that the Army develop a more focused suicide-prevention program for soldiers deployed to Iraq and Kuwait.
"What our soldiers are experiencing are the inherent stressors of combat that we would expect," Col. Edward Crandell, the team's leader and chief of the Department of Behavioral Health at the Army's Womack Medical Center at Fort Bragg, said in a written statement on the report. "It is therefore essential to identify and treat combat and operational stress on the battle-field."
Suicides among soldiers reached a rate of 19.9 per 100,000 soldiers, the team reported. In 2004, the rate was 18.8 per 100,000. The actual number of suicides was 22 in 2005, 11 in 2004 and 25 in 2003, The Associated Press reported.
The suicide rate for the United States' civilian population was 10.8 per 100,000 people in 2004, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
All members of the U.S. armed forces go through mental health briefings before and after deployment, and can receive mental health assistance from medics and chaplains abroad, according to Army Capt. J. Elaine Hunnicutt.
Soldiers and their supervisors also are trained to recognize signs that a fellow soldier is in need of assistance, she said.
"We make every effort to ensure that our people are taken care of and do not endanger themselves or others if they have problems coping with the stresses of war," she said.
The nearly 1,500 soldiers surveyed for the report said they received suicide-prevention training before and during deployments.
They also said access to behavioral health care has improved, and more soldiers reported needing such care.
The report did not specify how or why access to care improved.
Leading suicide risk factors uncovered were relationship issues at home and in the theater of war, legal actions, problems with other soldiers, and command and duty performance, according to the Army Mental Health Advisory Team's report, the third since 2003.
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