The Tennessee National Guard is taking new steps to prevent suicides in its ranks. The state’s top brass is responding to a rise in suicidal behavior.
The National Guard offers briefings as troops return from deployments and maintains a buddy system where soldiers check on each other. But the Tennessee Guard has gone a step further and developed a smart phone application of its own. Among other services, it allows soldiers to speak confidentially to a licensed counselor 24-hours a day.
Clark Flatt (left), CEO of the Jason Foundation, and Maj. Gen. Max Haston describe how the suicide prevention application works.
The regular Army has been battling suicides too, mostly by offering services at its installations. Maj. Gen. Max Haston says Guard soldiers are scattered across the state.
“We’re not on post. We don’t have that immediate response, so we have to work harder to maintain contact with our airmen and our soldiers. So that’s what this application and this battle buddy, wing man concept will do.”
Since 2005, six Tennessee guardsmen have taken their own lives, according to Haston. But he says the guard is seeing more and more soldiers threatening to hurt themselves.
The smart phone application was developed with help from a Hendersonville-based suicide prevention organization called the Jason Foundation. Tennessee Guard officials say they’re offering to share the technology with other states.
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