Army: Depression Increases After Multiple Tours

Copyright © 2008 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

Soldiers should receive as much time at home between deployments as they serve in combat zones. That's one of the conclusions presented by Army psychiatrists in an annual mental health survey released today.

NPR's Guy Raz has more details.

GUY RAZ: Five years on in Iraq, one out of five soldiers suffers from mental health problems. For those on their second or third tour, says Army psychiatrist Colonel Elspeth Ritchie, the numbers are even higher.

Colonel ELSPETH RITCHIE (Army Psychiatrist): Noncommissioned officers, soldiers who are on their third and fourth tour - about 27 percent of them have symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

RAZ: The Army surveyed more than 2,000 soldiers in Iraq and 900 in Afghanistan last fall. The study found that longer deployments mean a higher chance of depression or anxiety. Here's the Army Deputy Surgeon General Gale Pollack.

Major General GALE POLLACK (Army Deputy Surgeon General): You're more likely to struggle the longer you've been deployed. And some of these soldiers are on a second or third deployment.

RAZ: The Army's survey also found that soldiers who experienced a combat loss within their unit are more than twice as likely to mistreat noncombatants. And so, according to Lieutenant Colonel Paul Blissey(ph), an Army psychologist, to mitigate some of these risk factors, the Army needs to consider giving soldiers more time off between deployments.

Lieutenant Colonel PAUL BLISSEY (Army psychologist): One of the conclusions that we draw from this is that soldiers are not resetting entirely before they get back into theaters to, you know, completely recover from the previous deployment when they go back into theater for the second and third deployment.

RAZ: Last summer, Virginia Democrat, Senator Jim Webb, introduced legislation that would do just that, but the bill was defeated in the senate largely along party lines.

Guy Raz, NPR News, Washington.

Copyright © 2008 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.