Type of Publication: Policy Brief
Date: 10/31/2011
Losing the Battle: The Challenge of Military Suicide, by Dr. Margaret Harrell, CNAS Senior Fellow and Director of the Joining Forces Initiative, and Nancy Berglass, CNAS Non-Resident Senior Fellow, suggests that the health of the all-volunteer force is dependent on our nation’s ability to take care of its service members and veterans.
According to the report, "Suicide among service members and veterans challenges the health of America’s all-volunteer force." From 2005 to 2010, service members took their own lives at a rate of approximately one every 36 hours. This tragic phenomenon reached new extremes when the Army reported a record-high number of suicides in July 2011 with the deaths of 33 active and reserve component service members reported as suicides. Additionally, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 18 veterans die by suicide each day. Yet the true number of veterans who die by suicide, as Harrell and Berglass point out, is unknown. As more American troops return home from war, this issue will require increasingly urgent attention.
Harrell and Berglass present a number of concrete policy recommendations that will help reduce the number of service member and veteran suicides, including establishing an Army unit cohesion period; removing the congressional restriction on unit leaders discussing personally owned weapons with service members; and increasing coordination between the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to improve the analysis of veteran suicide data. Despite the efforts of the DOD and the VA to address military suicide, obstacles remain, and policymakers must bring a renewed urgency to their efforts if America is to both honor the sacrifices made by the all-volunteer force and protect its future health and ability to defend the nation.
Suicide among service members and veterans challenges the health of America's all-volunteer force.While any loss of military personnel weakens the U.S.armed forces,the rapid upswing in suicides among service members and veterans during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan threatens to inflict more lasting harm.If military service becomes associated with suicide,will it be possible to recruit bright and promising young men and women at current rates? Will parents and teachers encourage young people to join
the military when veterans from their own communities have died from suicide? Can the all-volunteer force be viable if veterans come to be seen as broken individuals? And how might climbing rates of suicide affect how Americans view active-duty service members and veterans
-and indeed,how service members and veterans see themselves?
This policy brief hasfour objectives.
First,it examines the phenomenon of suicide withinthe U.S.military community,including both the frequency of suicide and the extent to which suicide is related to military service.
It outlines steps taken by the Department of Defense (DOD),the armed services and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to reduce suicide in the armed forces and among veterans.
It then identifies obstacles to redudng suicidesfurther and makes recommendations to address each of those obstacles.
What We Know About Military Suicide
THE NUMBERS ARE STARK
From 2005 to 2010, service members took their own lives at a rate of approximately one every 36 hours.
While suicides in the Air Force, Navy and Coast
Guard have been relatively stable and lower than those of the ground forces, U.S. Army suicides have climbed steadily since 2004. The Army reported a record-high number of suicides in July 2011 with the deaths of 33 active and reserve component service members reported as suicides.Suicides in the Marine Corps increased steadily from 2006 to 2009, dipping slightly in 2010. It is impossible, given the paucity of current data, to determine the suicide rate among vet erans with any accuracy. However, the VA estimates that a veteran dies by suicide every 80 minutes.
Moreover, although only 1 percent of Americans have served in the military,former service members repre sent 20 percent of suicides in the United States.
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