Military has made effort to help troubled soldiers
By ANNA M. TINSLEY
atinsley@star-telegram.comThe Fort Hood community knows all too well how stress and pressure can take a tremendous human toll, as soldiers deploy more quickly to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have stretched on for years.
The base has seen its share of incidents, including suicides, leading its former commander, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, to speak out this year about problems some soldiers experience when they come home.
In the past year, suicide rates are up, domestic violence has increased, and at least a dozen deaths reported at Fort Hood since last summer were suspicious, officials have said.At the same time, more than 500 Fort Hood soldiers have been killed since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, according to statistics from The Associated Press.
Part of the cause may be post-traumatic stress disorder, some experts believe. Another part, though, may be the stressful life soldiers lead.
"It’s the stress level involved in the very existence of soldiers — not only the actual day-to-day stress but the context they live in, of military preparedness," said Kenneth Sewell, a psychology professor at the University of North Texas in Denton. "Not only is violence part of their daily existence, but the very normal denial that we will not die, which most young people have, is not available to young soldiers.
"They are confronted with their mortality."
The Army recently reported 117 suicides of active-duty soldiers since January, compared with 103 during the same period last year.Specific numbers for Fort Hood were not released, but base officials launched a major effort to relieve stress and prevent suicides.
"All our efforts often come down to one soldier caring enough about another soldier to step in when they see something wrong," Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire, director of the Army Suicide Prevention Task Force, said at the time.
Here are some cases of violence at or near the base:
Two soldiers were arrested after a fight that led to a shooting at a late-night party in Killeen in August. One person was killed.
Spc. Ryan Richard Schlack, 30, died in July after a specialist allegedly shot into a crowd in a Fort Hood housing area.
In September 2008, police investigators said that after a lieutenant and his staff sergeant went to a soldier’s home one morning, a fight broke out and the soldier shot the lieutenant. After police fired at the soldier, he turned the gun on himself.
In 1997, the FBI arrested two men and confiscated a truckload of rifles, ammunition and explosives. The men, Michael Leonard Dorsett and Bradley P. Glover, had ties to radical militia groups and were accused of planning to attack the base during Independence Day festivities. Dorsett and Glover were later convicted in federal court on weapons charges. Each was sentenced to five years in prison.
In nearby Killeen was the deadly 1991 Luby’s shooting, which left 23 dead and more than 20 injured before the shooter — George Hennard, 35 — killed himself.
The shooting gave the city beside the base the notorious distinction of being the site of the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S., until the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings.Staff writers Darren Barbee and Mike Lee and researcher Cathy Belcher contributed to this report.
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