Nineteen years of continuous war zone deployments and the pressures of coronavirus lockdowns weigh heavily on America’s soldiers.
As Army suicides rise, leadership on Tuesday emphasized efforts to address mental health concerns.
“I am very concerned about the behavioral health impacts of COVID. It’s affecting our soldiers,” chief of the Army Gen. James McConville said at a Pentagon press briefing.
“It disconnects people,” he added before replacing a camouflage mask over his mouth.
McConville himself recently faced a coronavirus scare following news of the positive test of Joint Chiefs member and Coast Guard Vice Commandant Adm. Charles Ray, who visited the White House the day after a Sept. 27 Rose Garden event that infected more than two dozen attendees.
McConville, however, did not face the same harsh 14-day isolation period after his potential exposure that many enlisted soldiers have faced in recent months.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we did quarantine for a couple of days,” he admitted. “We take it very, very seriously, but at the same time, as leaders, there’s things that we have to do in person.”
FaceTime, phone calls, and text messages are ways that unit leaders have been encouraged to preserve the social connection with their soldiers during the coronavirus pandemic.
“If you can’t be next to each other, go with FaceTime first, so you can still see the person, [so] you can still see the reaction,” said Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston, the Army chief’s personal adviser on matters affecting the enlisted force and their families.
Grinston said the Army issued a PACE communication plan earlier this summer to help guide unit leaders.
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy declined to link coronavirus isolation with the rise in Army suicides.
“We’re concerned about the isolation, and that’s why we’re trying to find effective ways to communicate with each other,” he said.
While the active-duty Army has not suffered a COVID-19 death, the Army has reportedly seen a spike as high as 30% in suicides this year.
In the first quarter of 2020, the Pentagon reported 38 Army suicides. Second-quarter numbers, which cover the period of April 1 to June 30 during the harshest coronavirus lockdowns in the military, have been withheld by the Department of Defense.
As of Friday, the Army had 18,213 coronavirus cases, nearly double the next-highest service count.
McConville said high demands on soldiers during the nation’s two decades of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not relented.
“Our soldiers have been highly deployed over the last 19 years and done an absolutely fabulous job,” he said. “The [operational tempo] is still extremely high.”
In addition to better communication with soldiers, the Army is opening inclusion programs and quality of life issues improvements in areas such as child care, spouse employment, and permanent change of station moves that will help.
McConville said that the way rotational deployments work will change, too, but that might be a long time coming.
“We’re going to see that coming out over the next two years,” he said.
