In a report issued December 13, 2007, Senator Pat Murray informed USA Today that the U.S. Army had provided new suicide statistics on deployed soldiers.  Those numbers show 77 confirmed suicides Army-wide this year through Nov. 27 and 32 other deaths pending final determination as suicides. 

A total of 109 suicides this year would equal a rate of 18.4 per 100,000, the highest since the Army started counting in 1980. The civilian suicide rate was 11 per 100,000 in 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The military hasn't erased the stigma surrounding mental health issues, so troubled soldiers often do not seek help," Murray says.

While the Army has increased its mandatory mental health  training for soldiers, it is clearly too little, too late.  Our military is stretched far beyond any reasonable limits.  At the current troop levels and extended deployments, it is only reasonable to conclude that soldier suicides will continue to rise and severe mental illness among deployed soldiers will go untreated.

Please help draw attention to the desperate need for full-time improved mental health care and intervention for our soldiers.  Mental illness is extremely difficult to live with under the best of circumstances.  Imagine, if you can, having to deal with mental illness in a war zone!  Please sign the petition to support our troops, and pass it along to others.  Together, we CAN bring pressure in Washington to help those soldiers who so desperately need it.