Tough old soldier battles new enemy: Suicide epidemic

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Tough old soldier battles new enemy: Suicide epidemic
By Halimah Abdullah, McClatchy Newspapers
Stars and Stripes online edition, Sunday, January 31, 2010

WASHINGTON — Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel Rhodes keeps pictures of the dead in his pockets.

They're the faces of young soldiers whose eyes stare out resolutely from photocopied pages worn and creased by the ritual of unfolding them, smoothing them flat and refolding them.

They're the faces of men who, haunted by problems at home or memories of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — the dead children, the fallen comrades and the lingering smell of burnt flesh — pressed guns to their heads and pulled the triggers or tied ropes with military precision and hanged themselves.

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Rhodes, 49, is among a small cadre of senior non-commissioned officers and officers who are opening up about their journeys back from the brink of suicide — efforts that top military commanders applaud as they battle a suicide epidemic. The open support from the military's uppermost ranks for openly discussing a topic long considered taboo is a revolution triggered largely by both greater awareness and pressure to curb record-high suicide rates.

This month, the Defense Department reported that there were 160 reported active-duty Army suicides in 2009, up from 140 in 2008. Of these, 114 have been confirmed, while the cause of death in the remaining 46 remains to be determined. The increase in military suicides includes men between the ages of 18 and 30, mid-career officers and, increasingly, women.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=67666