WASHINGTON - Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007 at the highest rate on record, and the toll is climbing ever higher this year as long war deployments stretch on. At least 115 soldiers killed themselves last year, up from 102 the previous year, the Army said Thursday.
Nearly a third of them died at the battlefront -- 32 in Iraq and four in Afghanistan. But 26 percent had never deployed to either conflict.
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A U.S. Army soldier on patrol in Afghanistan's Zabul province, March 24, 2008. [Agencies]
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"We see a lot of things that are going on in the war which do contribute -- mainly the longtime and multiple deployments away from home, exposure to really terrifying and horrifying things, the easy availability of loaded weapons and a force that's very, very busy right now," said Col. Elspeth Ritchie psychiatric consultant to the Army surgeon general.
"And so all of those together we think are part of what may contribute, especially if somebody's having difficulties already," she told a Pentagon news conference.
Some common factors among those who took their own lives were trouble with relationships, work problems and legal and financial difficulties, officials said.
More US troops also died overall in hostilities in 2007 than in any of the previous years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Violence increased in Afghanistan with a Taliban resurgence, and US deaths increased in Iraq even as violence there declined in the second half of the year.
Increasing the strain on the force last year was the extension of deployments to 15 months from 12 months, a practice ending this year.
The 115 confirmed suicides among active-duty soldiers and National Guard and Reserve troops who had been activated amounted to a rate of 18.8 per 100,000 troops -- the highest since the Army began keeping records in 1980. Two other deaths are suspected suicides but still under investigation.
So far this year, the trend is comparable to last year, said Lt. Col. Thomas E. Languirand, head of command policies and programs.
As of Monday, there had been 38 confirmed suicides in 2008 and 12 more death that are suspected suicides but still under investigation, he said.
The rate of suicide continues to rise despite a host of efforts the Army has made to improve the mental health of a force under unprecedented stress from the longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the long and repeated tours of duty it has prompted.
