US Army Releases June Suicide Information

The Army released sui­cide data today for the month of June. Among active-duty sol­diers, there were nine poten­tial sui­cides: none have been con­firmed as sui­cide, and nine remain under inves­ti­ga­tion. For May 2011, the Army report­ed 21 poten­tial sui­cides among active-duty sol­diers. Since the release of that report, one case has been removed because the man­ner of death was ruled acci­den­tal, two cas­es have been con­firmed as sui­cide, and 18 cas­es remain under inves­ti­ga­tion.

Dur­ing June, among reserve com­po­nent sol­diers who were not on active duty, there were five poten­tial sui­cides: one has been con­firmed as sui­cide, and four remain under inves­ti­ga­tion. For May 2011, the Army report­ed six poten­tial sui­cides among not-on-active-duty sol­diers. Since the release of that report, one case has been added for a total of sev­en cas­es. Two cas­es have been con­firmed as sui­cide, and five cas­es remain under investigation. 

“Ear­ly recog­ni­tion of high risk behav­ior asso­ci­at­ed with admin­is­tra­tive, legal and oth­er dis­ci­pli­nary actions presents inter­ven­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties for lead­ers, law enforce­ment per­son­nel and ser­vice providers to mit­i­gate neg­a­tive out­comes, specif­i­cal­ly sui­ci­dal behav­ior,” said Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire, direc­tor of the Army Health Pro­mo­tion and Risk Reduc­tion Task Force. 

In response to this, the U.S. Army Mil­i­tary Police School has incor­po­rat­ed train­ing into all pro­fes­sion­al mil­i­tary edu­ca­tion cours­es to alert mil­i­tary police to the effects of stress caused by inves­ti­ga­tions or oth­er dis­ci­pli­nary actions that can lead to acts of self harm. 

McGuire, who is also the provost mar­shal gen­er­al of the Army, recent­ly imple­ment­ed a new “Risk Noti­fi­ca­tion Mem­o­ran­dum” to field com­man­ders to high­light the poten­tial risk to sol­diers who are sub­ject to a seri­ous felony inves­ti­ga­tion. This noti­fi­ca­tion is pro­vid­ed by Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion Com­mand to com­man­ders upon the ini­ti­a­tion of an inves­ti­ga­tion on one of their soldiers. 

Sol­diers and fam­i­lies in need of cri­sis assis­tance can con­tact the Nation­al Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Life­line. Trained con­sul­tants are avail­able 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and can be con­tact­ed by dial­ing 1–800-273-TALK (8255), from OCONUS using the appro­pri­ate coun­try access code, or by vis­it­ing their web­site at www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org .

The Army’s com­pre­hen­sive list of Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Pro­gram infor­ma­tion is locat­ed at http://www.preventsuicide.army.mil

Army lead­ers can access cur­rent health pro­mo­tion guid­ance in new­ly revised Army Reg­u­la­tion 600–63 (Health Pro­mo­tion) at:
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r600_63.pdf and Army Pam­phlet 600–24 (Health Pro­mo­tion, Risk Reduc­tion and Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion) at http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/p600_24.pdf .

Sui­cide pre­ven­tion train­ing resources for Army fam­i­lies can be accessed at http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/suicide/training_sub.asp?sub_cat=20 (requires Army Knowl­edge Online access to down­load materials). 

Infor­ma­tion about Mil­i­tary One­Source is locat­ed at www.militaryonesource.com or by dial­ing the toll-free num­ber 1–800-342–9647for those resid­ing in the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States. Over­seas per­son­nel should refer to the Mil­i­tary One­Source Web­site for dial­ing instruc­tions for their spe­cif­ic location. 

Infor­ma­tion about the Army’s Com­pre­hen­sive Sol­dier Fit­ness Pro­gram is locat­ed at http://www.army.mil/csf/ .

The Defense Cen­ter for Excel­lence for Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury (DCoE) Out­reach Cen­ter can be con­tact­ed at 1–866-966‑1020, via elec­tron­ic mail at Resources@DCoEOutreach.org and at www.dcoe.health.mil.

The web­site for the Amer­i­can Foun­da­tion for Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion is http://www.afsp.org/ and the Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Resource Coun­cil site is found at http://www.sprc.org/index.asp.

The web­site for the Tragedy Assis­tance Pro­gram for Sur­vivors is www.TAPS.org, and they can be reached at ‑1–800-959-TAPS (8277).

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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