Suicides among U.S. special operations forces, including elite Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, are at record levels, a U.S. military official said on Thursday, citing the effects of more than a decade of "hard combat."
The number of special operations forces committing suicide has held at record highs for the past two years, said Admiral William McRaven, who leads the Special Operations Command.
"And this year, I am afraid, we are on path to break that," he told a conference in Tampa. "My soldiers have been fighting now for 12, 13 years in hard combat. Hard combat. And anybody that has spent any time in this war has been changed by it. It's that simple."
It may take a year or more, he said, to assess the effects of sustained combat on special operations units, whose missions range from strikes on militants such as the 2011 SEAL raid that killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden to assisting in humanitarian disasters.
The Trump administration has fired the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse,...
The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is experiencing “severe” staff shortages at all its...
Several Republican-led states are deploying more National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. to address what President...
The DC national guard will begin deploying on the city’s streets Tuesday night, the White House...
