Bipartisan trio in Congress wants more action on Army Alaska’s suicide problem

For those who or a beloved one is experiencing ideas of self-harm or suicide, you’ll be able to confidentially search help by way of the Army/Veterans Disaster Line at 800-273-8255, by way of textual content at 838255 or chat at http://VeteransCrisisLine.web.

A trio of influential lawmakers from each events joined collectively to ask the Military to step up its efforts to stem the tide of suicide deaths occurring on the service’s bases in Alaska, they introduced Wednesday in a letter to Military Secretary Christine Wormuth.

Alaska’s two Republican senators, Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, signed the letter declaring “we’re failing our service members,” alongside Rep. Jackie Spier, D-Calif., who chairs the Home’s army personnel subcommittee.

Though the complete energetic responsibility Military skilled a traditionally excessive variety of confirmed or suspected suicide deaths in 2021, Military Alaska’s 17 deaths amongst its roughly 11,000 troopers represented a disproportionately excessive fee.

“Service members stationed in Alaska are beneath an outsized stage of stress from a number of angles, together with behavioral well being specialist shortages, monetary challenges, infrastructure and transportation limitations, and the adjustment to residing in a distant location with excessive chilly climate,” the members of Congress stated.

The lawmakers referred to as consideration to “inadequate” behavioral well being capability at some Alaska installations — together with 11 vacant psychological well being supplier roles on the distant Fort Wainwright — and purple tape proscribing digital appointments to suppliers within the Pacific area.

One other attainable subject, the lawmakers say, “are comparatively easy issues like widespread Vitamin D deficiency” that could possibly be solved by higher distribution of present Military shares of UV lights.

In addition they prompt the Military alleviate a few of the monetary pressures on troops within the area by “establishing a month-to-month particular ‘Arctic Pay’ of $300 per 30 days…[and] a particular month-to-month allowance to offset the distinction between the price of an uncapped web plan in Alaska and the typical month-to-month web value in CONUS.”

Among the many lawmakers’ different concepts to incentivize service in Alaska: everlasting put on of the Arctic tab, follow-on project desire, shorter excursions at Fort Wainwright and additional promotion factors for enlisted troops.

Speier, Sullivan and Murkowski additionally need the service to create a plan for higher screening and making ready troops for Alaska assignments. This might contain excluding troopers with ongoing behavioral well being remedy or these of their first enlistment who hail from hotter elements of the nation, until they volunteer.

The members of Congress requested that the Military develop formal plans to handle their considerations whereas the Protection Division initiates a wider impartial evaluate of the army’s suicide prevention efforts.

Just like the DoD’s impartial evaluate of sexual assault that resulted in sweeping adjustments to military-wide insurance policies, the suicide fee will go to bases across the nation to conduct surveys, focus teams and different work to judge the effectiveness of present prevention applications.

Three Alaska installations — together with the Military’s Fort Wainwright and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson — are among the many first spherical of websites that the fee will go to.