Pentagon Sending Mental Experts to Combat Alaska Military Suicides

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The Department of Defense is sending an emergency "surge" of doctors, psychiatrists, religious chaplains and other mental health experts to military bases in Alaska to combat the rapid rise in suicides there, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth told a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on Thursday.

"We are sending behavioral people," Wormuth said. "We will be doing a 100% mental health check of every soldier [stationed] in Alaska.

Wormuth described the sending of the diverse group of mental health professionals as a "surge" and said their deployment in America's largest, most lightly populated and most northern state would last for six months.

"We are doing a six month surge. ...We are looking at reflagging the Alaska [military force] as 11 Army Alaska" in a bid to boost morale, she said. The group would include religious chaplains, psychiatrists and behavioral scientists, she said.

In 2021, at least 11 soldiers died by suicide in Alaska and another six deaths are still under investigation. In 2020, seven soldiers took their own lives; eight in 2019; and three in 2018, the military.com website said.