MILITARY: Marine Corps expands ranks of mental health monitors

New effort comes as suicide numbers rise

By MARK WALKER - mlwalker@nctimes.com | Posted: Monday, November 23, 2009 7:30 pm

Facing a record level of suicides in its ranks this year and increases in cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, the U.S. Marine Corps is moving to put more mental health specialists alongside its combat troops.

On Monday, Gen. James Amos, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, issued a directive requiring that a specialist who is trained to spot troops having difficulties be placed with every infantry company scheduled for assignment in Iraq or Afghanistan.

A Marine Corps company has about 300 troops. Until now, the program only required mental health specialists at the much larger regimental level. A regiment has about 12,000 troops.

"The need to provide full-time presence below the regimental level is evident," Amos said in the order. "Highest priority is for immediate training of battalions deploying in the near future."

Training will begin at Camp Pendleton in a few weeks, the Corps said.

The order from Amos comes after the Marine Corps recorded 42 confirmed or suspected suicides as of Oct. 31 among its 208,000 troops. The 42 self-inflicted deaths through the end of last month equals the number of Marine Corps suicides for all of 2008.

Thirty-three Marines killed themselves in 2007, compared with 25 in 2006, according to service statistics.

To expand the ranks of mental health specialists, the Marine Corps is embarking on a crash course for company executive officers and hand-picked enlisted Marines. The concept is that fellow combat troops often are in the best position to know who is having difficulty processing combat experience.

Navy Cmdr. Bryan Schumacher, the top medical officer for Camp Pendleton's 25,000-member 1st Marine Division, said the initiative is vital.

"It puts the preventative aspect of combat operational stress directly in the hands of Marine leadership being guided by mental health specialists," he said. "It's a big push down to train Marine mentors."

Navy chaplains, psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers at command levels can only do so much, Schumacher said.

"This says we have to take this even more seriously," he said. "As ingrained as chaplains and medical officers are, Marines who have all been through the same training together are often the best ones to spot this down at the company level."

With thousands of Camp Pendleton troops scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan next year to relieve East Coast Marines, Schumacher said a large-scale training effort will begin at Camp Pendleton within a few weeks.

"We have to get people ready by March," he said. "We're working with the headquarters of the Marine Corps to have a training team come out right after the holidays."

While being sensitive to the stresses troops face, Schumacher said Marines still have to confront a deadly insurgency in the mountains, valleys and towns of Afghanistan and Iraq.

"What we don't want are psychiatrists out on patrol with these guys, but we do want to improve the bad statistics we've been seeing," he said. "Every suicide is one too many, and we're trying to prevent that and take care of our guys as best we can ---- and not be in a position where, after the fact, we sit back and say, 'We should have seen that coming.'"

Bill Rider of the American Combat Veterans of War, an Oceanside-based outreach group that works with local Marines who have post-traumatic stress, said the latest initiative is overdue.

"It's good from the standpoint that it puts a support package directly with those who are most affected," he said. "It won't be a staff sergeant who just says everyone is fine, which is what has been happening. It will work if it's not intrusive, and the trigger pullers are able to trust the people they put in the job."

Call staff writer Mark Walker at 760-740-3529.

Ellie