General Peter Chiarelli, Army Chief of Staff, reported that as of Monday 140 active duty soldiers have committed suicide this year. While the numbers have declined for the past few months, we are still on pace to exceed the number of active duty suicides in 2008. This will be the fifth straight year of record breaking suicide rates among active duty troops.

Surprisingly, most of these suicide have occurred stateside and not in the theater of combat. However, the continued stress of dealing with repeated deployments into two wars overseas is believed to be driving the rates increasingly skyward.

This is one of the many facts that the President’s critics fail to consider as they throw rocks at President Obama for not rushing the decision to deploy more troops to Afghanistan. They also fail to consider the other deployment costs that our brave warriors must bear when they are called to serve. For every man and woman that gets deployed, there are spouses, children, parents and others that must cope with this stress as well. These casualties don’t get mentioned of acknowledged by the trigger-happy critics. How many marriages have collapsed due to the stress of repeated deployments? How many teenage pregnancies have occurred because Daddy’s away and Mommy has to work an extra job to make ends meet? (You’d be amazed at how many people in the military work part time jobs to support their families. Those dollars don’t get replaced when you get deployed).

While I personally believe that we need to continue the war in Afghanistan, I also believe that we must be PREPARED to fight it – and win it! Part of that preparation is ensuring that we aren’t pushing our soldiers to the brink of physical or mental destruction without the proper support systems and channels. Just today there was a news report of a female soldier who refused to deploy because she had no one to take care of her children. The report stated that her commanders advised her to put her children in foster care!!! Is that the best support we can provide for the men and women who risk their lives for this country? FOSTER CARE???

In 2001 we rushed into this war, got distracted for 7 years, and now we’ve decided to try to win it. The enemies we face are well armed, well financed, have home field advantage and are difficult if not impossible to find. They are also made stronger by the fact that the local Government is unable and unwilling to support itself or defend its people from these enemies without our support. The only way this war ends is if the Afghani government can provide its people protection from Al Qaeda and the Taliban forces that refuse to disarm. The Hamid Karzai and the rest of his cronies are unable to lead and develop the security forces of this nation; we should either replace them or leave. The one thing we cannot do is blindly throw more troops at this war and hope for a win. The surge that worked in Iraq was not just additional soldiers – it was also negotiation with enemies and improved government stability which made the Iraqi “surge” successful.

Our warriors deserve a well thought out strategy for success in this war. They deserve the proper support structures to reduce deployment-related stresses. Our leaders have a responsibility to ensure that their sacrifices are not made in vain. Mr. President, please work with your committee and work on making the right decision – not just the quick one. Our soldiers deserve a REAL plan for success!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 3:58 PM and is filed under Featured Writers!!, The 'Real Deal'! by J. Osborn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.