Suicides at Fort Hood Double Last Year

Army thinks 22 soldiers at the base took their own lives
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 6, 2011 12:43 PM CST
Suicides at Fort Hood Double Last Year
In this Nov. 10, 2009, file photo, soldiers salute as they honor victims of the Fort Hood shooting at a memorial service at the base.   (AP Photo/Donna McWilliam, File)

More bleak numbers on military suicides: The Army reports that a record-high 22 soldiers either killed themselves are or suspected of doing so at Fort Hood last year. The number is twice the figure from 2009, and the rate is more than double that of the same age group among civilians, reports USA Today. The rise comes amid ramped up psychiatric services in the wake of the shooting spree in November 2009 that left 13 people dead.

"It's like a chain reaction," the director of a soldiers' mental health clinic near the base tells the newspaper. "Being the front and back door to (Iraq and Afghanistan), on top of having had a massacre on post, we've got some pretty psychologically fragile folks." (More Fort Hood stories.)

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