Army Spec. Jeffrey Henthorn, 25, of Choctaw, Okla., was sent back to Iraq for a second tour even though his superiors knew he had twice threatened suicide. He shot himself with his rifle in 2005, an Army report says, fragments of his skull piercing the barracks ceiling.
Army Pfc. David L. Potter, 22, of Johnson City, Tenn., was diagnosed with anxiety and depression while serving in Iraq in 2004. Records show Potter remained on active duty in Baghdad despite a suicide attempt and a psychiatrist's recommendation that he be separated from the Army. Ten days after the recommendation was signed, he slid a gun out from under another soldier's bed and shot himself.
These deaths are among the most extreme failures by the U.S. military to properly screen, treat and evacuate mentally unfit troops, a Hartford Courant investigation has found.
Faced with troop shortages, the military has increasingly sent, kept and recycled troubled service members into combat -- practices that undercut past assurances that it would improve mental healthcare. Besides suicides, experts say, gaps in such care can lead to violence between soldiers, accidents and critical mistakes in judgment during combat operations.
Among the newspaper's findings:
* Despite a congressional order that the military assess the mental health of all deploying troops, fewer than 1 in 300 service members see a mental health professional before shipping out.
* Once at war, some unstable troops are kept on potent antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs with little or no counseling or medical monitoring, in violation of the military's regulations.
* Some troops who developed post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq are being sent back to the war zone.
These practices seem to have fueled an increase in the suicide rate among troops serving in Iraq, which reached an all-time high in 2005 when 22 soldiers killed themselves -- accounting for nearly one-fifth of all noncombat Army deaths.
The investigation found that at least 11 service members who committed suicide in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 were kept on duty despite exhibiting signs of significant psychological distress.
The Army's top mental health expert, Col. Elspeth C. Ritchie, acknowledged that some deployment practices, such as sending service members diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder back into combat, have been driven in part by the troop shortage. "The challenge for us is that the Army has a mission to fight. And, as you know, recruiting has been a challenge," she said.
