Do The Generals Know: Thoughts on Suicide Prevention
The army has a problem and we know it. Soldiers are dying by their own hand more than they are dying at the enemy’s hand. The Red Book, the Gold Book, and every commander from platoon leader up to the chief of staff are searching for answers.
But I wonder if the generals truly know what the sergeants and staff sergeants are facing at their level. We say this is a problem that can be fixed by leader involvement and I will not argue that point: there are far too many sergeants and not nearly enough NCOs as we used to say. But there are also far too many officers concerned with their next block check than actually caring for our troops. But for those leaders who are engaged, who are doing their very best, is the system working for them.
We had a train the trainer on suicide prevention yesterday. We had a platoon sergeant talk about taking a soldier who was hallucinating to the emergency room and being told he was fine. Why? Because he wasn’t a threat to himself or others. I’ve personally taken a soldier to the emergency room and tried to have him admitted because we found him in his apartment, using a cocktail of drugs that would have killed him had we not found him first. What did the hospital say? He says he’s not trying to kill himself: put him on CQ watch. Which is fine except that when you have less than 20% of the NCOs you’re authorized, who is going to watch this soldier? Do we stop training to do this?
The point of this piece is not to say the hospital is screwed up: the medical folks are overwhelmed. There simply are not enough resources for the soldiers who really need help to get it. Troops are coming into the army with PTSD and we’re breaking the back of our force in trying to do a thousand and one taskings, making sure our soldiers are home at 1700 with a family that may no longer be there because of more than a decade at war. Oh by the way, we’re still at war in a little by the way place called Afghanistan.
Do the generals know what the sergeants and staff sergeants are facing? We say back to basics but does that really mean inspecting your soldier’s room for lint on the fan? Or checking to make sure all soldiers are wearing their road guard belt? Or maybe it just means know where you soldiers live. Accountability by text message is not acceptable: when is the last time you saw a leader get fired for this? Or maybe that’s not the right question. Maybe the question should be: what else was that NCO doing that he or she simply did not have time or the personnel to personally check on someone?
We point to the garrison army of the 90s and say they did it. What was so different then? Well for starters, we had a larger force. Significantly larger. We had a different force, then, too. Suck it up and drive on was the mentality of the day but I distinctly remember my NCOs talking to me, knowing where I lived and being there. I can’t say what’s happening today because I am no longer a member of that time honored corps. As an officer, it would be too easy to say the NCOs are screwing up. I don’t believe that. What can we, the officer corps, do to make their jobs better? What can we take off the calendar so the NCOs and first line leaders have time to do that oak tree counseling that everyone seems to memorialize but no one can find the time to do. And if they are doing it, what are they not getting done? Because something has to give.
Everything cannot be a priority. If suicide prevention is truly a priority, then maybe, just maybe, we need to devote more time to it. But it must be a trade off, not merely another thing piled on. Because our force is breaking under the strain of trying to accomplish every mission. And there are some missions we simply must not fail.
