Admiral Mullen Confronts Suicide on Fort Campbell Visit

On his first visit to Fort Campbell today, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff encouraged soldiers contemplating suicide to ask for help.

Admiral Mike Mullen says he believes extended deployments combined with shrinking time at home has contributed to the record number of suicides.

As many as 143 soldiers across the Army took their own lives last year. Last month alone, the figure could go as high as 24. Four of those deaths were at Fort Campbell. Mullen tells soldiers the trend has to stop.

“We’re not a famous organization for encouraging raising our hands and saying ‘I need help.’ That’s not how we raise each other. That’s not what we see. And that’s got to change as well.”

Mullen says the Army does have a shortfall of qualified mental health professionals, but he places some responsibility on Army leadership. He charges officers to think creatively and get more downtime for soldiers when they are home from deployments. He says he hopes to eventually give soldiers twice as much time home as in theatre, but that won’t happen for several years.

Soldiers also had the opportunity to ask questions. They mentioned problems working with military contractors in Iraq, recruiting and the use of thumb-drives.

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The Army has temporarily banned the use of small flash drives that soldiers use professionally and personally to move and store information. The Department of Defense is concerned about worms and viruses entering the system this way. Mullen says the ban is for the forseeable future.