U.S. Marines Suffer Most Suicides in Five Years

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/arms_marines_suicide_dc

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Suicides of U.S. Marines have reached their highest level in five years, prompting a Defense Department effort to encourage Marines to seek mental health services, a Marine Corps spokesman said on Tuesday.


But spokesman Bryan Driver said there was no evidence linking the higher suicide rate with the long tours of duty and frontline fighting Marines have engaged in Iraq (news - web sites).


There have been 32 confirmed or probable suicides among 178,000 Marines this year, surpassing the 28 who killed themselves in 2001 as the United States invaded Afghanistan (news - web sites), Driver said.


The Marines, the smallest of the U.S. armed services by number of troops, have had the military's highest suicide rate -- about 25 per year among 178,000 active duty troops since 1999, the year the government began keeping detailed records.


"What we found out when we looked into the circumstances are relationship problems, financial problems, legal problems. Those are the three main triggers in these Marines' lives," Driver said.

... gee I wonder why? :(

[VegasWolf]

1. Arnuld calls them girlie-men. n/t

[xchrom]

2. i'm guessing it's always been higher than the average?

[SouthernDem2004]

3. Useless stat....

So what? It was only five years ago and nothing was happening then. Yawn.

[0007]

4. Maybe its the Commander in Chief?

The military psychiatrists are puzzled by the suicide rate in Iraq, saying that it makes little sense in comparison with those in past conflicts.

The accepted wisdom in military psychiatry is that the level of suicides - far from increasing during wars - drops as the survival instinct kicks in among the personnel in the conflict zone. Just two suicides were recorded among US personnel during the entire Gulf war in the Nineties. What is also unusual about the rate in Iraq, in comparison with Vietnam, Korea and the Second World War, is that everyone serving in the all-volunteer forces has already been screened for their psychological suitability. They have also been briefed on combat stress and trained to counter any suicidal feelings, following a rash of military suicides which embarrassed the Pentagon in the late Nineties.

The little boys in the pentagon should be ashamed of themselves!

http://www.refusingtokill.net/USGulfWar2/stressepidemicstrikesamerican.htm