Jun 24 - ‘US military [rip]s result of multiple deployments, poor health care’

The rise of [rip]s in the U.S. military partly has to do with the stress resulting from multiple deployments and a less than ideal health care system for U.S. soldiers, according to Ellen Barfield, an anti-war activist and member of War Resisters League in Baltimore.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Friday promised a new focus on [rip] prevention by military leaders, not just to benefit troops and veterans but also the country as a whole.

“More and more of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are taking their own lives. It has to do with definitely far less than ideal health care, especially mental health care,” Barfield said in a phone interview with the U.S. Desk on Sunday.

Barfield said, “They keep over using and abusing the troops they have and a fair number of the [rip]s have been from troops that have been sent back repeatedly.”

Earlier this month, Pentagon officials announced that 154 service members took their own lives in the first 155 days of 2012, a sharp increase from the same period a year before.

Across the U.S., statistics from 2008 Department of Health and Human Services data shows that 10.3 million Americans contemplated [rip] at least once that year, with nearly half of that group working out detailed plans on how to k#ll themselves.

Department officials said they expect upcoming 2010 data to show even bleaker numbers.
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