OLEAN -- One of the last series of investigative articles I prepared for Gannett News Service before retiring in 2002 dealt with "suicides" in the military throughout the 1990s, deaths that looked more like homicides.
The Armed Forces were grappling with "spikes" in the suicide rates but didn't seem much interested in finding out why such increases were occurring.
By the year 2000, military "suicides" were far more likely than death in combat. (This was before we invaded Iraq, of course.) The Army's CID (Criminal Investigation Division), the Navy Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) and the other military criminal investigation agencies seemed more interested in protecting base and ship commanding officers whose military careers would be ruined if peacetime deaths under their supervision were found to be homicides.
Aggrieved parents would hire private detectives who needed only to conduct cursory research to tear the military's claims of "suicide" apart. Once the parents got wind of my series, example cases rolled in:
There were all sorts of similar laughable determinations of suicide, accompanied by totally unbelievable forensic findings involving soldiers who hung themselves while handcuffed or shot themselves several times while in incredibly contorted postures -- that sort of thing. Obvious murders.
Congress investigated once but came to vague conclusions and glossed over the troubling evidence, a favorite outcome of congressional committees. Members pretty much yawned whenever the subject came up again.
What troubled the few military investigators who cared was the era in which the increasing "suicides" occurred -- a period when membership in the military was voluntary, when young Americans generally entered the armed forces because they wanted to, and when at least rudimentary psychological screening supposedly had occurred upon enlistment.
Now, we learn the Pentagon has a new problem with suicides among the troops. This one is more understandable.
A recent Pentagon report found the rate of suicide among soldiers in Iraq is about a third higher than the historical average in the Army. It is still lower than the national average for young males, but given the military's modern training, ubiquitous oversight and daily supervision, Defense Department experts are concerned about the self-induced deaths.
In the Army alone, 27 men and women have committed suicide since participation in the Iraq war -- 20 in the field and 7 upon return home. And those figures are three months old. Pentagon psychological surveys showed substantially more than two-thirds of the troops in Iraq were experiencing low morale, not as much of a surprise.
Military shrinks suspect some of the mental depression stems from the widespread but close-up killing that our troops are called upon to do almost daily in the Iraq war.
As "New Yorker" magazine writer Dan Baum points out in a most enlightening article called "The Price of Valor" in the July 19 issue of that publication, the Pentagon is not eager to explore this possibility.
The Army "Leaders' Manual for Combat Stress Control" makes no mention of killing enemy soldiers.
The "Iraq War Clinician Guide" issued by the Veterans' Affairs Department last month -- 207 pages long -- makes no mention of the psychiatric trauma that might come with killing enemy combatants.
The Army Medical Corps textbook on combat trauma -- titled "War Psychiatry" and 500 pages long -- does not specifically include killing as a combat stress factor in its main chart, Baum writes, although it does list such ethereal stress-inducers as "disrupted circadian rhythms" and "breakdown of narcissistic defenses." The text elsewhere does acknowledge that casualties inflicted on the enemy are stressful events.
Troops returning from Iraq are asked to fill out a four-page experience description form, but the closest the questions come to the subject is one that asks, "Did you see anyone wounded, killed, or dead during this deployment? Mark all that apply."
West Point psychology professor David Grossman, himself a retired lieutenant colonel, told author Baum that killing the enemy is one of the "major factors" that cause American troops to crack, both in battle and the aftermath, and refusal to deal forthrightly with it could hurt military efficiency.
Grossman believes soldiers should be made to confront the idea in early training, should be prepared for the eventuality, and should be instructed how to deal with it. But, he told Baum, a "conspiracy of silence" surrounds the topic in the military. You are trained to kill the enemy, but your possible reaction is not discussed.
The Pentagon's nervousness over the subject is not surprising. Another retired colonel and former Army psychiatrist, Harry Holloway, told the "New Yorker" writer: "As soon as we ask the question of how killing affects soldiers, we acknowledge we're causing harm, and that raises the question of whether the good we're accomplishing is worth the harm we're causing."
Don't misinterpret this column as just another liberal screed about our involvement in Iraq. For purposes of illustration, let's assume our cause is just and our troops are there to protect America. Then consider this: In World War II, after action reports showed only 15 percent or so of American combat troops -- rifle carriers -- actually fired at the enemy. It was a big command problem. Pentagon experts realized after WW II that, instead of stressing individual human targets, it was more efficient to teach the combat skill of "massing fire" against places where enemy combatants were likely hiding.
By the Vietnam War, according to Baum, 90 percent of American troops were pulling the trigger. If clinical depression is harming our war effort in Iraq, Pentagon recruiters and trainers might do better to start candidly treating combat as a deadly, nasty business instead of some joystick adventure right off the computer screen.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 13 2004 |