US Military: US Army Guards Suicides Doubled

The US military says the suicide rate among the Army National Guard's personnel has significantly soared, blaming rising combat stress in Iraq and Afghanistan for the upward trend.

The number of suicides among National Guard soldiers, who were on inactive duty in a year when the Army was seeing a slight decline among active-duty soldiers, doubled in 2010 as compared to the previous year, AFP quoted the US Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli as saying without precise numbers on Wednesday.

The senior US military official said 156 active duty soldiers also killed themselves in 2010.

He further touched upon the upward trend in the suicide death rate among the US military personnel on overall, where 343 individuals committed suicide last year, which is more than 69 compared to the previous rate in 2009.

Even though US military officials are pinning the bulk of the blame on the mounting combat stress in overstretched wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are growing speculations that the severe economic conditions and the turbulent job market in the United States may have also contributed to the high suicide rate among soldiers.