Live from the Army Family Action Plan Conference: Vice Chief Details Programs to Strengthen the Army Family

General Peter W. Chiarelli Remarks

January 11, 2010

Vice Chief Details Programs to Strengthen the Army Family

The Army’s Vice Chief of Staff today told the Army Family Action Plan Conference today that the Army continues to focus on strengthening Soldiers and Families to meet the challenges of a long war with repeated deployments.

“The ‘big idea’ is that we want to move from treating medical and behavioral issues after the fact to where we are assessing potential issues and building Soldier and Family resilience,” Gen Peter W. Chiarelli said.

Gen. Chiarelli noted that the Army’s suicide rate has historically been lower than the civilian population but has recently risen higher than the population. “Any Soldier suicide is one suicide too many,” he said. “The Army saw much progress in suicide prevention in the second half of 2009, and that’s due to leadership at all levels looking out for Soldiers.”

Although many factors can contribute to a Soldier suicide, Gen. Chiarelli said that deployments alone are not the cause. “Other factors include relationship issues, drug or alcohol abuse and law enforcement issues,” he explained. “We do know that the most dangerous time for Soldiers is during the transitions before and after deployments. The Army has so many suicide programs – the challenge is getting leaders at all levels to know which programs are most effective in particular situations.”

The Army is already reaping benefits from its STARRS program – the Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Soldiers – a five-year, $50 million initiative to “find an algorithm for suicide. “But we’re not waiting five years for results,” Gen. Chiarelli said. “We’re refining our suicide prevention programs now.

Treating Soldiers more effectively for traumatic brain injury, Gen. Chiarelli noted, requires change on several levels within the Army. “TBI is a huge issue for us,” he said. “Identifying concussions and quickly getting treatment is our challenge, but we also have to change the culture of the Army. Just because you can’t see an injury doesn’t mean that a Soldier hasn’t been injured.”

The Army is using innovative technologies to help prevent post-traumatic stress disorder, Chiarelli said. “We’re doing a lot of virtual reality training to help strengthen Soldiers against PTSD,” he explained. “We’re also doing treatment closer to the events that cause PTSD. Again, culture change is the first step. The challenge is to accept PTSD as a ‘no-kidding-I-believe’ injury caused by combat. You can’t command someone out of an instance of PTSD, so we are providing more counseling for leaders – particularly non-commissioned officers – to help them help Soldiers.”

Behavioral health problems are another area where new technology – virtual screening – can be effective and appealing to Soldiers. “Screening Soldiers virtually for potential behavioral health issue after deployments works,” said Gen. Chiarelli. “We have shown that it can be done. It’s especially effective with our younger Soldiers because they like doing things on-line and they feel more comfortable giving responses.”