From Barbara Starr and Mike Mount
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One week after the U.S. Army announced record suicide rates among its soldiers last year, the service is worried about a spike in possible suicides in the new year.
If reports of suicides are confirmed, more soldiers will have taken their lives in January than died in combat.
The Army said 24 soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in January alone -- six times as many as killed themselves in January 2008, according to statistics released Thursday.
The Army said it already has confirmed seven suicides, with 17 additional cases pending that it believes investigators will confirm as suicides for January.
If those prove true, more soldiers will have killed themselves than died in combat last month. According to Pentagon statistics, there were 16 U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq in January.
"This is terrifying," an Army official said. "We do not know what is going on."
More..
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/05/army.suicides/
MY COMMENTS: They don't know whats going on? Hmmm. Multiple tours into a combat zone; no that's not it. Lack of appropriate rest between deployments; no that's not it. Insufficient medical care between, during and after deployments; no that's not it. Sending soldiers with PTSD into a combat zone; no that's not. Our soldiers must just be plain crazy; yeah that's got to be it.
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