Record number of soldiers committed suicide last year

clipped from blogs.usatoday.com A record number of active-duty soldiers killed themselves last year, according to The Washington Post. The paper cites an internal Army study that shows 121 soldiers committed suicide in 2007. That's a 20% increase over the prior year The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed severe stress on the Army, caused in part by repeated and lengthened deployments," the paper reports. "Historically, suicide rates tend to decrease when soldiers are in conflicts overseas, but that trend has reversed in recent years. From a suicide rate of 9.8 per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2001 -- the lowest rate on record -- the Army reached an all-time high of 17.5 suicides per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2006 The number of attempted suicides among soldiers is six times higher than it was The Associated Press is quoting preliminary figures that show more than a quarter of the suicides took place in Iraq Click here for the warning signs that suggest someone is considering suicide