WASHINGTON — As the suicide rate has climbed measurably across the military over the past few years, top Army and Marine Corps officials proposed several solutions Tuesday to erase the social stigma associated with mental health illnesses and to combat the less visible wounds of war.
Responding to a congressional panel’s concerns about an NPR report that identified deficiencies in the Army’s mental health program, Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, defended current policies and promised to engage the military’s vulnerable youth.
While the Army is reporting a decline in suicides among active duty soldiers, suicides among reservists who have returned home and aren’t on active duty totaled 53 this year through mid-June, up 26 percent from the comparable period last year. Suicides among active-duty Army dropped 30 percent through mid-June from a year earlier, to 62.
Suicides overall increased by 26 percent from 2008 to 2009, while suicides among Marines have more than doubled since 2005.
The ability to properly diagnose mentally ill soldiers will require a more fundamental shift beyond mere medical practice, officials concluded.
The priority for the military, Chiarelli and Marine Corps Assistant Commandant James Amos said, is to change a military culture that has made soldiers and Marines reluctant to seek help from mental health professionals for fear that doing so could damage their careers.
Chiarelli advocates the use of Web-based health care services, which would give every soldier a 30- to 40-day session with a behavioral health specialist using the Internet.
Behavioral health studies, Chiarelli said, have demonstrated that younger soldiers prefer this sort of online counseling to face-to- face encounters.
“This gets at stigma issues,” Chiarelli said. “I really think this is something that will fix this now.”
