There's an editorial in today's Fayetteville, North Carolina's Observer about the U.S. Army's efforts re: suicide prevention in its ranks, basically asking the question about whether the Army is doing enough. As the editorial says in part:
"Are all of the stress teams, suicide-prevention classes, counseling, psychotherapy and intervention enough? Few would dispute a spokesman’s assurance that “we do take suicide prevention very seriously.” But should the Army do more thinking outside the box? Are its people doing enough to identify and evaluate recruits with pre-existing, even hereditary conditions? Is there too much emphasis on active duty vs. reserves and too little on troops who, whatever their current status, are exposed or have recently been exposed to the blunt psychological trauma of combat? Is there anything to be learned by studying both self-directed violence and “domestic” violence as different facets of a single problem?
"Intervention is fine, but intervention is a strategy for preserving the lives of people already so deeply troubled that they’re trying to end them. What is the strategy for keeping people who live, month after month, in the most trying conditions imaginable from reaching that point? Are the education, the budgets and the staff equal to the challenge?"
