Russia losing a battalion a year to suicide

[djmc3150]

http://news.trendaz.com/index.shtml?show=news&newsid=1211330&lang=EN

Russian army: nearly a battalion a year commit suicide29.05.08 22:41

The Russian army lost near a battalion, 341 servicemen, last year to suicide, the chief military prosecutor said Thursday, dpa reported.


"Almost a battalion of servicemen was lost last year," chief military prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky was quoted by Interfax as saying at a news conference in Moscow.


Fridinsky called for "urgent reforms," saying that though the total number of suicides had fallen 14 per cent from 2006 it had risen as a proportion of non-combat losses.


"We cannot but worry that suicides make more than half of all non-combat losses," he stressed.


Violent hazing of conscripts by older soldiers, experts say, is the main cause of high the suicide rate.


The army began addressing bullying in 2005 when the media gave wide coverage to the case of Private Andrei Sychyov, who had his genitals and legs amputated after being beaten and tortured by older soldiers on New Year's Eve.


Top military brass have repeatedly vowed to fight high suicide numbers that have caused embarrassment to the army, which flush with state money is working on reforms after being stripped of resources at the end Soviet Union.


The Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, which campaigns for the rights of Russian servicemen and their families, however, said hazing was difficult to abolish because it is tolerated by army superiors as part of the same experience they lived through as recruits.


"Since Stalin's times nothing has changed: a single soldier does not count for anything," committee head Valentina Melnikova told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.


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[Sentinel]

A U.S. soldier patrols the streets of Baghdad in January.


http://www.cnn.com/.element/img/2.0/mosaic/base_skins/baseplate/corner_wire_BL.gif
The dramatic increase is revealed in new U.S.


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Every day, five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves. Before the Iraq war began, that figure was less than one suicide attempt a day.

The dramatic increase is revealed in new U.S. Army figures, which show 2,100 soldiers tried to commit suicide in 2007. "Suicide attempts are rising and have risen over the last five years," said Col. Elspeth Cameron-Ritchie, an Army psychiatrist. Concern over the rate of suicide attempts prompted Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, to introduce legislation Thursday to improve the military's suicide-prevention programs. "Our troops and their families are under unprecedented levels of stress due to the pace and frequency of more than five years of deployments," Webb said in a written statement.

Video Watch CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre on the reasons for the increase in suicides » Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, took to the Senate floor Thursday, urging more help for military members, especially for those returning from war. "Our brave service members who face deployment after deployment without the rest, recovery and treatment they need are at the breaking point," Murray said. She said Congress has given "hundreds of millions of dollars" to the military to improve its ability to provide mental health treatment, but said it will take more than money to resolve the problem. "It takes leadership and it takes a change in the culture of war," she said. She said some soldiers had reported receiving nothing more than an 800 number to call for help. "Many soldiers need a real person to talk to," she said. "And they need psychiatrists and they need psychologists." According to Army statistics, the incidence of U.S. Army soldiers attempting suicide or inflicting injuries on themselves has skyrocketed in the nearly five years since the start of the Iraq war. Last year's 2,100 attempted suicides -- an average of more than 5 per day -- compares with about 350 suicide attempts in 2002, the year before the war in Iraq began, according to the Army. Don't Miss * Study: PTSD, not brain injury, may cause vets' symptoms The figures also show the number of suicides by active-duty troops in 2007 may reach an all-time high when the statistics are finalized in March, Army officials said. The Army lists 89 soldier deaths in 2007 as suicides and is investigating 32 more as possible suicides. Suicide rates already were up in 2006 with 102 deaths, compared with 87 in 2005. Cameron-Ritchie, the Army psychiatrist, said suicide attempts are usually related to problems with intimate relationships, but they are also related to problems with work, finances and the law. "The really tough area here is stigma. We know that soldiers don't want to go seek care. They're tough, they're strong, they don't want to go see a behavioral health-care provider," Cameron-Ritchie said. Multiple deployments and long deployments appear to exact a toll on relationships, thereby boosting the number of suicide attempts, she said. Traditionally, the suicide rate among military members has been lower than age- and gender-matched civilians. But in recent years the rate has crept up from 12 per 100,000 among the military to 17.5 per 100,000 in 2006, she said. That's still less than the civilian figure of about 20 per 100,000, she said. The "typical" soldier who commits suicide is a member of an infantry unit who uses a firearm to carry out the act, according to the Army. Post-traumatic stress disorder also may be a factor in suicide attempts, Cameron-Ritchie said, because it can result in broken relationships and often leads to drug and alcohol abuse. "The real central issue is relationships. Relationships, relationships, relationships," said U.S. Army Chaplain Lt. Col. Ran Dolinger. "People look at PTSD, they look at length of deployments ... but it's that broken relationship that really makes the difference." To reduce suicides, the Army said it is targeting soldiers who are or have been in Iraq for long periods and teaching them to notice signs that can lead to suicide. That training came too late for Army Specialist Tim Bowman. The 23-year-old killed himself in 2005 after returning from Iraq. "As my family was preparing for a 2005 Thanksgiving meal, our son Timothy was lying on the floor, slowly bleeding to death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound," said his father, Mike Bowman, in testimony to a House Veterans' Affairs committee hearing in December. "His war was now over." advertisement He said veterans return home to find an "understaffed, under-funded, under-equipped" Veterans Affairs mental health system.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/01/military.suicides/index.html

[Sharkfin]

I suspect every country with a military has a certain number of suicide and suicide attempts every year.

Maybe the military needs to fix some problems.

Serving in the military is suposed to be one of the highest lifegoals a person can give their country. It makes men of you. If it is driving so many to suicide then obviously something is wrong with the services. Suicides in the military has been mentioned on and off for decades yet nothing has changed concerning it.

Maybe it is time to change things. Serving is not the same today as it was a hundred, two hundred years ago so modernizing the treatment of enlistees might be the order.

Otherwise it will get harder and harder over the years to convince sane thinking people to join up.

[djmc3150]

A U.S. soldier patrols the streets of Baghdad in January.


http://www.cnn.com/.element/img/2.0/mosaic/base_skins/baseplate/corner_wire_BL.gif
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/01/military.suicides/index.html

What does your article have to do with the thread? Explain.

This is a Russian culture / society / news area and thread. I posted an article ABOUT RUSSIA and you respond with an unrelated article about the US?

Stop trashing the thread.

Maybe its you are a russophile and arent able to talk about an issue plaguing the Russian military and you think pointing out US military suicides mitigates the issue?

If you want to make a comparison, fine, lets do so:

Troops in Sustained combat operations:

US (Iraq 168000 + Afghanistan 25000) = 193000
Russia = 0

Military Suicides in 2007

US: 115
Russia: 341

Lets hear your biased retort to why Russia has such a high suicide rate when they arent even in combat.

[djmc3150]

I suspect every country with a military has a certain number of suicide and suicide attempts every year.

Maybe the military needs to fix some problems.

Serving in the military is suposed to be one of the highest lifegoals a person can give their country. It makes men of you. If it is driving so many to suicide then obviously something is wrong with the services. Suicides in the military has been mentioned on and off for decades yet nothing has changed concerning it.

Maybe it is time to change things. Serving is not the same today as it was a hundred, two hundred years ago so modernizing the treatment of enlistees might be the order.

Otherwise it will get harder and harder over the years to convince sane thinking people to join up.

I think Russia's problem is conscription, forcing all males to serve 1 year in the service dilutes their professionalism and causes things like this. As the professionals will abuse the conscripts, which appears to be whats happening.

[Uragan]

115 - I suspect is the LOWEST estimate. :rolleyes:

Deaths in our militaries often have little to do with "hazing" and much to do with Psychological problems. Some soldiers who lose a girlfriend or have family problems try to end their lives. There was this one guy who tried to hang himself 5 times.

[djmc3150]

115 - I suspect is the LOWEST estimate. :rolleyes:

Deaths in our militaries often have little to do with "hazing" and much to do with Psychological problems. Some soldiers who lose a girlfriend or have family problems try to end their lives. There was this one guy who tried to hang himself 5 times.

115 is for the Army, not entire military, i think total is around 150 or so, but not certain. Just as the 341 is just for the Russian Army.

Your assetion of why they are commiting suicide is contradictory to what YOUR OWN GENERALS are saying. Do you have anything to counter them besides your own nationalistic excuses?