Noteboom The Law Firm

DoD And Civilians Team Up To Study Military Suicides

November 19, 2010 - Many veterans return from combat suffering from various mental health conditions and find themselves engaged in a completely new type of warfare. Unfortunately, many of those veterans end up taking their own lives because of their mental trauma. More soldiers killed themselves between 2005 and 2009 than were killed in Afghanistan since 2001. Broken down into a more manageable number, one soldier killed themselves every 36 hours.

The Department of Defense (DoD) recently published a study focusing on military suicides. Researchers spent a year studying the subject and found a real issue among military cultural norms. Being trained to work as part of a team may work against some soldiers who find themselves no longer with that team; with nobody they trust to turn to for help. When help is not sought, bad things can happen. Suicides among military personnel now exceed the rate of suicides among civilians.

The Army is determined to get a grip on this increasing problem. They plan on doing this by financing the creation of the Military Suicide Research Consortium (MSRC) with a $17 million subsidy. This will be created through Florida State University and the Denver VA Medical Center. The MSRC's sole focus will be performing research into military suicides. Ultimately they want to be able to identify soldiers at risk so they can intervene before it is too late. The MSRC represents the first time the DoD has coupled with civilians to prevent suicides among military personnel.

The Army wants to be able to guarantee the best services are in place for those soldiers in need of help. In order to make that happen, they need the most information possible. This is what the MSRC hopes to provide.