“Terrifying” statistic: more Army suicides than combat deaths this January

Philip Dawdy cross-posted a February 5, 2009 cnn.com report that the U.S. Army has confirmed more deaths in January 2009 were due to suicide than combat — a total of seven confirmed suicides with 17 more expected to be confirmed soon.

The thought of these 24 souls who joined the Army with at least some hope of improving their lives through the military succumbing to the utter despair of suicide breaks my heart. Sometimes I feel as if the old me — the one who walked through her days like a zombie unable to share a moment’s happiness with anyone that didn’t feel forced and fake because the entire world seemed doused in shit — barely existed, and her feelings are a numb, distant memory, like probing the hole left behind by a missing tooth. But reports like this bring the memory of that despair back in full force. I feel the anguish. I feel the cold wall of nothing, of knowing there is no way out, of the absolute certainty that there is nothing for you.

“This is terrifying,” an Army official said. “We do not know what is going on.”

And though I know now that feeling was despair, and that it was a misperception — for I feel strongly that suicide is like a cancer of the perspective, and that if we can just be shown another view, another path, another way, we can work our way into the light — I know the feeling is real. And so I grieve for this war my country is engaged in. And I ask again, when will it stop, and when will we learn to stop the killing?

As I have mentioned before, the Army and Marines begin a month-long standdown on February 15th in which the entire corps will be trained to detect combat stress in fellow soldiers, and one-on-one intervention techniques. The Army has also unveiled a training program called Battlemind designed to prepare soldiers and their families for combat stress. I hope it’s not too little too late.