New tactic to stop Army suicides: Your Say

The Army, which recorded an average of six suicides per week last year, is developing a program to identify soldiers who are likely to try to kill themselves. Letter to the editor:

In your article "Army explores predicting suicides as way to prevent them," I was angered to read the quote from Army Deputy Undersecretary Thomas Hawley: "It just drives me crazy that we can't figure (it) out."

As a disabled veteran with severe post-traumatic stress disorder who has considered suicide, I think it should drive officials crazy that they don't understand suicide and the reasons people consider it. However, spending $65 million to study suicide and create a program that generates a list of at-risk individuals will have unintended consequences. Could it help identify someone who might consider suicide? Yes. Will this system stigmatize people and create stereotypes causing soldiers to be given inappropriate, targeted treatment? Yes.

The Army doesn't need to spend another dime to realize that depression and alcohol abuse are triggers. If the Army is serious about preventing suicides, then rather than talk about it or spend taxpayer money to identify the obvious, it should hold its leaders — down to squad leaders — accountable to be good stewards of the women and men who come into their charge. Spend the money on better understanding PTSD and depression. Treat these as disabilities, not as diseases, and likely, more lives will be saved.

Thom Terwilliger, retired lieutenant colonel, U.S. Air Force; Arlington, Va.

Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar:

This project is scary. There are a lot of small people in power positions in the military.

I don't care what researchers say. The program, which will generate a list of names of at-risk individuals, will be abused. Soldiers will feel targeted, and it will make the situation worse.

— Gerald Beecham

Our military is being downsized, so we have fewer active-duty troops, and we are relying on the National Guard and Reserves more. With fewer troops, these soldiers are forced to make repeat trips to the war zone.

In the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the enemy was not always clearly defined. One of the main threats today is being blown up by an improvised explosive device. Our troops do not know when they take a step if it will be their last. The stress is beyond comprehension for many of us. We need to either increase the size of our military or bring them home and stop trying to police the rest of the world.

— Bill Buckley

To solve this problem, perhaps we should examine ourselves more closely, and I mean society as a whole, not just the military. Maybe the cause is our society, from which men and women come to fill the ranks of our military.

Let's face it, folks: Society has gone downhill in the past couple of decades. On nearly every moral scale, we have declined, and that has consequences for our young people.

I'm in my 19th year of active-duty military.

— David Eberhard

It starts with the brass and senior enlisted in some cases.

These guys don't know when and how to look out for servicemembers at times without being harsh, when what a member needs is help and support.

— Vasas Christopher

Everyone knows why servicemembers are committing suicide. They are being used as expendables.

Our government has never taken care of its soldiers.

— Bobby Haynes

Stop sending the same men back into combat year after year. You can't eliminate suicide, but you can diminish it.

— Jack Briss