Suicide, War & Drugs

In August 2010, the Department of Defense issued a 233-page report on suicide prevention in the Armed Forces.  The stated goal of the study is to “Focus efforts on Service Member well-being, total fitness (of the mind, body, and spirit), and development of life skills and resiliency to increase protective factors and decrease risk factors.”[1] Appendix I is a listing of Suicide Prevention Research in the military with the costs of each project.  Here are some examples.

• The Army’s $50 million study assesses risk and resilience by measuring psychosocial and neurobiological factors in surveys from those who have attempted suicide, and relatives of those who have completed suicides.
• A six hundred thousand dollar study measures the correlation between antidepressants and suicide risk.
• A $1.1 million study measures whether packaging medicines in blister packs will reduce abuse and overdose of drugs.
• A $2 million study focuses on cognitive behavioral therapy.  A $2.6 million study examines safety-planning intervention.

Marc Murphy| Courier Journal

The problem of suicide has escalated significantly since the DoD study of 2010.  The Associated Press reported on June 8^th that suicides in the Armed Forces have averaged one a day this year, an 18% increase from last year.  SecDef Leon Panetta has called the problem one of post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues, but a growing number of military officials are examining the excessive use of antidepressants, antipsychotic, attention deficit hyperactivity drugs, and sleeping pills and their connection to suicides.

Drugs such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, which boost serotonin levels in the brain, come with warning labels of increased risk of suicide for those up to age 24.  All of these drugs are included in the modern Army psychiatrist’s deployment kit, and soldiers are often given a six-month supply of medications.  According to the Army Surgeon General, 8% of active duty soldiers are on sedatives, and more that 6% are on antidepressants, which is an eightfold increase since 2005.[2]  Our soldiers are facing significant stresses with more than 30% of the force having gone on three or more deployments.

There is a glaring omission in the 233-page report on suicide prevention issued by the DoD—it does not mention prayer.  The omission is borne out of ignorance and neglect of military history that clearly points to chaplain and leader-led prayer as the sustenance and encouragement of battle weary soldiers worldwide.  History is replete with examples of the “military necessity” of prayer in the life of all service members.  General J. Lawton Collins, Former Army Chief of Staff, who served in the 1950s on the President’s Committee on Religion and Welfare in the Armed Forces, wrote:

Our present responsibilities of world leadership call for strength in great measure—strength born of physical power and technological skill superiority, and even more, the spiritual strength that is basic to the American way of life.[3]

Adding to the chorus is the voice of Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, 1969 to 1973, who said:

Prayer for the common good and acknowledgement of Divine Providence is a central, official and historical tenant of the combat leadership preparation of the American Military, particularly officer training and particularly in times of national peril.[4]

Science confirms authoritative Military judgment regarding prayer.  “The Studies in Social Psychology in World War II Series,” produced by the Social Science Research Council, was one of the largest social science research projects in history.  Volume II, The American Soldier, Combat and Its Aftermath, Princeton University Press, (1949), reported data on the importance of prayer to officers and enlisted infantrymen.  Prayer was selected most frequently as the soldier’s source of combat motivation.  The motivation of prayer was selected over the next highest categories of “thinking that you couldn’t let the other men down,” and “thinking that you had to finish the job in order to get home again.”  From the responses, “did not help at all,” “helped some,” and “helped a lot,” 70% of enlisted men in the Pacific Theatre (n = 4,734), and 83% in the Mediterranean theatre (n = 1,766) responded “helped a lot,” as did 60% of Infantry officers (n = 319):

These data would suggest that combat men who had experienced greater stress were at least as likely to say they were helped by prayer as those who had been subjected to less stress” (p. 176)…[T]he fact that such an overwhelming majority of combat men said that prayer helped them a lot certainly means that they almost universally had recourse to prayer and probably found relief, distraction, or consolation in the process (p. 185).  [Emphasis added.]

General George C. Marshall served in an era when service members faced the same “psychological” trauma that our troops are witnessing in Iraq and Afghanistan today.  He said of the WWII soldier,

…I look upon the spiritual life of the soldier as even more important than his physical equipment…the soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul are everything.  Unless the soldier’s soul sustains him, he cannot be relied upon and will fail himself and his commander and his country in the end.  It’s morale, and I mean morale, which wins the victory in the ultimate, and that type of morale can only come out of the religious fervor in his soul.  I count heavily on that type of man and that kind of Army.[5]

Guided by the therapeutic professions, the military institution continues to spend millions seeking answers as 50 percent more soldiers have succumbed to suicide than to military action in Afghanistan this year.[6]  The only balm offered for war-wearied souls today is found in psychotropic drugs and cognitive behavioral therapy, when history from the Revolutionary War to the present reveals that American soldiers in the fog of war find true comfort and relief in historic military prayer.