Suicide rate among young war vets spikes dramatically

This time last year, top brass within the U.S. Army were pledging to make suicide prevention their highest priority in 2009.

Reeling from a record 140 suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2008 — the highest rate in three decades — the Army rolled out new training tools to prevent further tragedy.

If the efforts are making a difference, they’re not making a dent in the death toll. By November, 147 soldiers had reportedly committed suicide and Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, confirmed that the total number of suicides in 2009 had already exceeded the total for 2008.

Numbers for December haven’t been released yet, but there’s more troubling news from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Associated Press is reporting that data from the VA shows the suicide rate among 18- to 29-year-old veterans spiked 26 percent between 2005 and 2007. “It’s assumed that most of the veterans in this age group served in Iraq or Afghanistan,” the story points out.

This week, officials from the VA and Department of Defense are already discussing the issue at an annual suicide prevention conference. According to the AP, Eric Shinseki, Secretary of the VA, told that gathering that his agency needs to do a better job understanding the causes of suicide and providing service to veterans at risk of taking their own lives.

But even a year after the Army started studying the issue and attacking it with new programs, there’s still a disturbing lack of certainty in how to stem the epidemic. “Why do we know so much about suicides but still know so little about how to prevent them?” Shinseki said at the conference. “Simple question, but we continue to be challenged.”