Like other branches of the military, the U.S. Air Force is struggling with increased numbers of suicides. With less than two weeks remaining in 2010, the Air Force reported 54 suicides this year, the highest total since 1993. It is the leading cause of death in the service, which witnessed 41 airmen take their lives in 2009.

 

Suicides also have plagued the U.S. Army and the Marines Corps, which have reported mixed results in helping personnel avoid killing themselves. In the Army, suicides dropped from 162 in 2009 to 144 this year. But June was a terrible month for the Army, along with the National Guard and Army Reserves, which averaged a suicide a day.

  

The Marines also experienced a drop in suicide totals from last year to this year (from 52 to 46). But the Corps has had the highest suicide rate of any military branch, climbing to 24 per 100,000 individuals, after being less than 13 only four years ago.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Air Force Suicide Rate Hits 17-Year High (by Jennifer H. Svan, Stars and Stripes)

Army Suicides Reach One a Day; Epidemic Spreads to National Guard and Reserves (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)

Marine Corps Tries to Cope with Rising Suicide Rate (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)