The Air Force Academy announced two senior cadets died within days of each other in suspected suicides amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The academy, located in Colorado, sent freshmen, sophomores, and juniors home as the virus spreads across the country but kept the roughly 1,000 seniors on campus. The two cadets died on Thursday and Saturday in what appear to have been suicides.
“I am heartbroken to confirm that since Thursday we have mourned the loss of two of our First-Class cadets here on our campus, and our entire Academy community is understandably shaken,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria wrote in an email sent Monday to cadets, their families, staff, and alumni.
“These tragedies have caused incredible shock and pain throughout our USAFA family,” Silveria added in a statement. “Right now we are all focused on taking care of the cadet’s families and each other — our cadets, our faculty, our staff — as we grieve this loss. We ask for everyone’s patience and respect for the families’ privacy at this time.”
The Air Force has been grappling with an increasing trend in active-duty suicides, with 2019 showing the highest suicide rate in three decades for the military branch.
“Suicide is a difficult national problem without easily identifiable solutions that has the full attention of leadership,” said Lt. Gen. Brian Kelly, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services.
President Trump warned in March that the number of suicides across the nation could increase during the mass stay-at-home orders.
“You have tremendous responsibility. We have jobs. We have … people get tremendous anxiety and depression, and you have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies. You have death probably in far greater numbers than the numbers we are talking about with regard to the virus,” he said.
