Army says suicides among soldiers at highest level in decades

WASHINGTON - Suicides among US soldiers rose last year to the highest level in decades, the Army announced yesterday.

At least 128 soldiers killed themselves in 2008. But the final count is likely to be considerably higher because 15 more suspicious deaths are still being investigated and could also turn out to be self-inflicted, the Army said.

A new training and prevention effort will start next week. And Colonel Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatric consultant to the Army surgeon general, made a plea for more US mental health professionals to sign on to work for the military.

"We are hiring and we need your help," she said.

The new suicide figure compares with 115 in 2007 and 102 in 2006 and is the highest since record keeping began in 1980. Officials calculate the deaths at a rate of roughly 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers - which is higher than the adjusted civilian rate for the first time since the Vietnam War, officials told a Pentagon news conference.

"We need to move quickly to do everything we can to reverse this disturbing . . . number," Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli said.

Officials have said that troops are under tremendous and unprecedented stress because of repeated and long tours of duty due to the simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The stress has placed further burdens on an overwhelmed military health care system also trying to tend to huge numbers of troops suffering from post-traumatic stress, depression, and other mental health problems as well as physical wounds and injuries of tens of thousands.

Yearly increases in suicides have been recorded since 2004, when there were 64 - only about half the number now. And they've occurred despite increased training, prevention programs, and psychiatric staff.

When studying individual cases, officials said they found that the most common factors for suicides were soldiers suffering problems with their personal relationships, legal or financial issues, and problems on the job.

The statistics released yesterday cover soldiers who killed themselves while they were on active duty - including National Guard and Reserve troops who had been activated.

The previous year's rate of suicides - 18.8 per 100,000 soldiers - had also been the highest on record.