{"id":293,"date":"2009-03-06T00:29:36","date_gmt":"2009-03-06T07:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=293"},"modified":"2009-11-21T21:32:58","modified_gmt":"2009-11-22T05:32:58","slug":"army-continues-fight-against-suicide-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/06\/army-continues-fight-against-suicide-trend\/","title":{"rendered":"Army Continues Fight Against Suicide Trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

As previously noted<\/a>, news reports indicate<\/a> that the US Army is continuing to face a tragic trend in suicides within its ranks.\u00a0 The trend is nearly double the rate for 2008, during which there were 138 confirmed suicides (with 5 cases still under investigation).<\/p>\n

The Army has said<\/a> it is “standing down” for suicide training, as well as “standing up” a task force<\/a> to be headed by Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire, a military police officer.<\/p>\n

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli<\/a> has said that “suicide is a multi-dimensional problem and as such will take a multi-disciplinary approach to dealing with it.”\u00a0 McGuire will look “across all disciplines [so commanders] can have a menu of tools, of training programs and experts that he can turn to and know how to best employ.”\u00a0 To that end, reports indicate they are investigating suicide prevention methodologies in a variety of fields, including both mental health and the Chaplaincy.<\/p>\n

From Army Suicide Prevention Posters: Talk to your Chaplain or a Behavioral Health Professional…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite criticisms of religious interference, the Army\u00a0continues to work with\u00a0Chaplains, who see\u00a0soldiers’ “issues”\u00a0on a day-to-day basis.\u00a0 At a\u00a0suicide-prevention “summit,”\u00a0Chaplains discussed suicide prevention methodology, including\u00a0life skills training, intervention, fostering hope, and engaging grief and recovery.\u00a0 There were also discussions on\u00a0the much-maligned<\/a> “Strong Bonds” retreat for married soldiers and “Battlemind<\/a>,” a resource intended to help\u00a0soldiers and families\u00a0prepare for, and recover from, combat deployments.<\/p>\n

As previously noted<\/a>, the intent is to reduce the stigma of seeking help and provide soldiers with a variety of legitimate means with which to combat the trend of suicides in their ranks.\u00a0 In that vein, CNN has also updated<\/a> a previous USA today\u00a0article<\/a> on two high-ranking Generals who have publicly discussed the\u00a0counseling they sought for post-combat stress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As previously noted, news reports indicate that the US Army is continuing to face a tragic trend in suicides within its ranks.\u00a0 The trend is nearly double the rate for 2008, during which there were 138 confirmed suicides (with 5 cases still under investigation). The Army has said it is “standing down” for suicide training, as well as “standing up” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4,2,10],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chaplain","tag-churchandstate","tag-military","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}