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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, January 12, 2004

Soldiers' suicides in Gulf lead to inquiry

By Michael Martinez
Chicago Tribune

LUFKIN, Texas — Army Spec. Joseph Suell had been distressed before. He missed his wife and daughters so badly last year that he was granted a short visit home from his yearlong assignment in South Korea.

It was a different story this year. In March, five months after completing his Korean tour and right after re-enlisting, the 24-year-old was sent to Kuwait and then Iraq.

The day after Father's Day, Suell died in Iraq, reportedly after taking a bottle of Tylenol. His death was classified as "nonhostile," but a military chaplain told Suell's wife, Rebecca, it was a suicide.

Suell's death comes at a time when the military is investigating the growing number of suicides by American forces in the Persian Gulf region. Since the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq last spring, 18 soldiers and two Marines had committed suicide by the end of December, most of them after combat was declared over May 1, the military said.

The Army is concerned about the deaths. Outside experts have said the rate is alarmingly high compared with the military's average suicide rates.

A report by a 12-member team of military and civilian mental-health professionals dispatched to Iraq in October to evaluate troops' mental health is expected to be released soon, officials said.

Independent experts said they hope the team's report offers some insight into the suicides. Did they result from personal issues, such as the loss of close relationships or from legal and financial matters? Or did they involve larger, more sensitive issues about the U.S. mission in Iraq?

Those broader questions relate to the morale of troops in Iraq, many of whom have complained of a long deployment. And they bear upon whether the Bush administration is overextending its standing army with such practices as deploying soldiers, such as Suell, on consecutive tours with insufficient family time, experts said.

Army officials have declined to comment on the potential contents of the report.

Suell's widow and mother don't believe he killed himself and wonder if the military did enough to address whatever medical problem he may have suffered.

Suicide experts with military backgrounds say the 20 suicides so far in the Iraq conflict is a very high number. Using the military's 12-month rate of a dozen suicides per 100,000 troops, self-inflicted deaths this year in Iraq should amount to no more than 13 at this point, according to Dr. Paul Ragan, who was a Navy psychiatrist for 11 years and is a Vanderbilt University associate professor.

Last year, the Army reported a 12-month suicide rate of 11.1 per 100,000 troops and is expected to report 12 per 100,000 this year, exactly like the military's overall rate.

The count of 20, with the Army investigating more deaths as possible suicides, is worrisome, Ragan said.

"My educated, military, psychiatric guess is that 20 is definitely high, and it's something that needs attention. You don't sit around for months and months and see what happens," Ragan said.

"If you extrapolate to a full year," added David Rudd, president of the American Association of Suicidology and a former Army psychologist, "it would seem to be potentially high."

While Army officials acknowledge that the suicide figure appears high, the overall number of 61 such deaths for that branch this calendar year is about average, officials said.

The Army's 130,000 troops in Iraq represent almost all of the U.S. force there, an Army spokesman said.

The 61 Army suicides in 2003 compare with 68 Army suicides in 2002, 49 in 2001 and 63 in 2000, the military said. The Army's worst period in the last 13 years was 1991, the year of the Persian Gulf war, when it reported 102 suicides.

Figures before 1990 were unavailable, military officials said.

"Even with Iraq, our numbers at the end of this year aren't going to be out (of) line with what they have been in previous years," said Army spokeswoman Martha Rudd, who is not related to David Rudd.

"Traditionally in wars, when soldiers are fighting in combat, there are very rarely suicides, because their survival instinct is active and their adrenaline is flowing," Martha Rudd said. "But once the (war) ceases, at first you are very busy in the aftermath ... setting up where you are, but then eventually you have time on your hands and you are miserable where you are."