A Bad White House Policy That Transcends Politics

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the White House has had a long standing policy that it does not send condolence letters to the families of soldiers who commit suicide while in combat.

This is a terrible policy. Suicide is major problem and to continue to stigmatize it through policies such as these does nothing to help.

Suicides in the military are often caused by combat-related stress. I think that point is undeniable in the case of one who takes his life on the battlefield. How is this loss of life any less tragic or any less deserving of our sympathies than if he died from an enemy’s bullet?

A soldier losing his life on foreign soil, regardless of the circumstances, is a very grave situation and deserves the hallowedness of any combat-related death. Nothing is gained by sweeping suicides under the rug or by trying pretend they don’t exist. There is no reason that the White House not honor these deaths.

By continuing this policy, the White House is tacitly complicit in the Army’s terrible track record for dealing with suicides. As long as suicides are shunned and covered up, our soldiers will never be able to get the help they need. The Army has policies and training programs in place to deal with suicides, but they do nothing to address the underlying problem. These policies are largely lip service, instituted from the top down. Unless real change is instituted from the bottom up, we have little hope for getting real help for our soldiers.

Now, I write this as an outsider, so I admit the following is based on perception only. The problems in the Army are systemic. First of all, the Army’s mission is different from other military. They are the ones with boots on the ground that go door-to-door looking for the bad guys. That type of job description usually attracts a certain type of person: a gung-ho adrenaline seeker looking for adventure.

Also, the Army attracts those that come from diverse backgrounds and thought maybe they wouldn’t fit it, nor care to, in the Air Force or the Navy. The type of person who joins the Army might be blue-collar with a tough background. This is nothing bad, it’s just the nature of the situation. Perhaps those with more opportunities in life sought out the Air Force, with the perception that it’s more “white collar” to the Army’s “blue collar”.

Because of the nature of the Army, their job description and the type of people they attract, they have young officers that are sold-out to the “tough guy” image. The Army, by their own admission, pushes promotions on young soldiers, perhaps giving them too much too soon. This immaturity therefore carries up into the leadership. If a young soldier is feeling depressed or is thinking of suicide, he cannot go to his peers or superiors for help.

Countless soldiers that have experienced the situation have said they feared ridicule and belittlement if they admitted their problems. Their fellow soldiers and their leadership tell them to “suck it up,” that they are “warriors” and there can’t be any “crybabies on the battlefield”.

Obviously the Army has its problems. It has failed leadership at several key levels. It attracts a type of person that might be prone to trouble anyway. None of this armchair analysis is meant to disparage our soldiers. Rather it is an attempt to look at the causes of the problems facing the Army so that we might try to learn how to fix them.

A mandate coming from the Pentagon telling the Army to include more suicide prevention videos will do nothing to help. The Army doctors that, instead of treating the patient, simply attempt to cover up symptoms by psychomedication do not help. The White House that continues to treat suicides as something to be ashamed of does not help.

These are our young men. They made a conscious decision to join the Army and serve their country. If the Army breaks them – and it does break them, for that’s what happens when something that is already fragile is handled without care – it, and the entire country, especially the White House, has a duty to honor our fallen.

The Colorado Springs Gazette ran a two-part investigation into the violence of Army soldiers. It does a good job of exposing and explaining the failures of the Army that lead to the current problems. I highly encourage everybody to read it. Part one. Part two.

The Army has taken steps to address this problem. Hopefully they are sincere and effective, but I fear they are mostly lip service and nothing fundamental will change. Certainly nothing will change so long as the White House continues with a policy that is destructive and only adds to the problem.

The White House must send a strong, clear, consistent and unwavering message that every combat death is a tragedy, suicide or not. Once it’s out in the open, hopefully soldiers will feel comfortable getting help and hopefully the help they receive is of the highest quality. If that happens, then hopefully this entire article will become moot.