Active duty GIs are com­mit­ting sui­cide at alarm­ing rates.

Last year, about 2,100 sol­diers injured them­selves or attempted sui­cide, com­pared with about 350 in 2002, accord­ing to the U.S. Army Med­ical Com­mand Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Action Plan.

The Army was unpre­pared for the high num­ber of sui­cides and cases of post-traumatic stress dis­or­der among its troops, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have con­tin­ued far longer than antic­i­pated. Many Army posts still do not offer enough indi­vid­ual coun­sel­ing and some sol­diers suf­fer­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems com­plain that they are stig­ma­tized by com­man­ders. Over the past year, four high-level com­mis­sions have rec­om­mended reforms and Con­gress has given the mil­i­tary hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars to improve its men­tal health care, but crit­ics charge that sig­nif­i­cant progress has not been made.

The con­flicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed severe stress on the Army, caused in part by repeated and length­ened deploy­ments. 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.

We have to bring them home where they are both needed and loved. We have to take care of them when they get here.