While waiting for the Army to decide whether to court-martial her for endangering another soldier and attempting to kill herself the previous year in Iraq, Lieutenant Elizabeth Whiteside, who was a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center had attempted to commit suicide on Monday evening.
As a result, Whiteside joins the number of soldiers that have committed or attempted to commit suicide after serving in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
“I’m very disappointed with the Army,” Whiteside had written in a note before swallowing a lot of antidepressants and other pills. She added: “Hopefully this will help other soldiers.”
Early Tuesday, Whiteside was taken to the emergency room. She had learned that the charges against her had been dismissed.
This is part of phenomenon that is alarming and concerning within the ranks of the United States Army. The suicide rate among active-duty soldiers in 2007 had reached the highest level ever since the Army had started keeping records back in 1980. This is according to a study obtained by The Washington Post.
In 2007, 121 soldiers had committed suicide. This is almost 20 percent higher than in 2006.
Also, the number of attempted suicides in the Army had multiplied by six when the Iraq war had started. In 2007, at least 2,100 soldiers have injured themselves or attempted suicide. This is much higher than the 350 back in 2002.
So far, the Army was not prepared for the high number of suicides and cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among troops. The wars brewing in Iraq and Afghanistan had continued longer than they were expected to be.
The Army has been stressed by the conflicts erupting in both Iraq and Afghanistan, attributed by part due to repeated and lengthened deployments to those regions. While the suicide rates historically decreased overseas it is a different story now.
The Army’s top psychiatrist and author of the study, Colonel Elspeth Cameron Ritchie said that suicides and attempted suicides continue to rise despite doing a lot of things. Ritchie said: “We need to improve training and education. We need to improve or capacity to provide behavioral health care.”
Another soldier that attempted suicide Staff Sergeant Gladys Santos said that the Army needed to hire more psychiatrists and psychologists who have an understanding on the effects of war.
“They gave me an 800 number to call if I needed help,” Santos said. She added: “When I come to feeling overwhelmed, I don’t care about the 800 number. I want a one-on-one talk with a trained psychiatrist who’s either been to war or understands war.”
She said the only effective therapy she had was with one-on-one sessions with her psychiatrist.