Suicides outnumber combat deaths in Afghanistan

As the U.S. winds down its presence in Afghanistan, it now confronts a side effect of a decade of combat: the increasing rate of suicides among servicemembers. The Associated Press reported today that the number of suicides this year among active-duty troops in Afghanistan far outpaces the number of soldiers killed in action in that country. Through the first 155 days of 2012, 154 suicides were recorded among active-duty servicemembers, 50 percent more than have died in combat. The number of suicides in January through May is 16 percent higher than the total during the same period in 2009, the year that recorded the highest number of suicides since 2001.