by Major General Windsor S. Buzza
Since 2009, the U.S. Army’s suicide rates among all soldiers have exceeded age-adjusted national norms by an average of 20%. In my current role as the Chief of Staff for U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM), I have read through every suicide incident report that has been generated by my command—a command that encompasses hundreds of thousands of Soldiers across the United States. Each incident report is a reminder that there is more we can do. While representing only 64% of the total Army population, Soldiers at the rank of Staff Sergeant and below account for 77% of the suicides. They are most often Caucasian males in combat arms specialties, 21-29 years old, and they have not deployed. These soldiers have easy access to a personal weapon and have experienced relationship, finance, behavioral health, or legal issues.
Many of these soldiers often lack the emotional intelligence and maturity, self-awareness, resources, and resiliency needed to effectively self-correct during life’s hardships. The Army traditionally relies on unit-level leader engagement to address Soldier behavior issues. While company-level leaders may have the intuition to recognize when their Soldiers are upset, they do not have the professional expertise to identify the underlying behavioral health issues nor the requisite life experience to provide effective counsel. If the Army is to address suicide rates more effectively, especially in these target demographics, we must cultivate a culture of leaders who ardently practice and support resiliency training, we must reinvigorate the Master Resilience Training program, and we must link Soldiers with available resiliency resources beyond their unit-level leaders.
From the top down, Army leadership at every level must strategically prioritize the development of a resiliency training culture rivaling that of our physical training culture. The Army spends an estimated $15,000 to bring someone into the service and another $50,000 to $75,000 to prepare them to join their first unit. This includes early and significant investment in physical assessment, training, and readiness. On average, most Army units conduct physical training 3-5 days per week. Physical fitness is ingrained in the culture visually and verbally, with leaders modeling, monitoring, and discussing fitness goals and strategies. By comparison, most units conduct resiliency training once a month on Foundational Readiness Days, often using training materials not personalized to meet individual Soldier needs. Resilience training is therefore maintained, but not ingrained in the culture. Army leaders must do more to step up our emotional training frequency and volume, ensuring programs are designed to address individual Soldier emotional development needs. Leaders at all levels must create opportunities for dialogue and shared identification with subordinates grounded in the methods they use to strengthen their own emotional maturity, self-regulation, mindfulness, and resiliency. This challenge calls on leaders to close the gap between what they do for themselves to build and maintain resiliency and the resiliency expected but lacking in high-risk Soldiers.
Army leaders must also fully embrace the Army’s Master Resilience Training (MRT) program, better integrate it with the mental domain of the Holistic Health and Fitness program, and energize it across the force. The MRT program has the means and addresses the need, but it has lost momentum since launching. Our senior leaders must revitalize and enforce required Master Resilience Trainer ratios to rebuild unit training capacity. Army studies that assess the effectiveness of the MRT program found that units that use their trainers effectively have significantly fewer diagnoses of mental health problems among Soldiers. We need bi-weekly resiliency sessions led by qualified trainers in order to provide the frequency needed to develop Soldiers’ emotional fitness. Vital to the success of each unit’s program is instructional quality and relevancy. Soldiers must be given the time and tools to develop self-awareness, emotional maturity, impulse-control, self-regulation, and other resilience techniques. Each Soldier also needs the opportunity to develop a tailored emotional wellness plan. Early and increased development of these adaptive skills reinforces a climate of trust and cooperation and reduces harmful behaviors. Unit leaders can provide Soldiers with the tools needed to achieve greater mental health, resilience, and readiness in brief sessions delivered bi-weekly.
Finally, Soldiers must have access to a diverse team of resiliency experts and professionals beyond unit leadership. For Army trainers, MRT program responsibilities are one of many collateral duties. To address suicide reduction strategies more effectively, these master trainers must leverage a myriad of other emotional support and behavioral health resources. Fortunately, a team of individual and organizational experts already exists to form a Soldier’s current and future support network. These resiliency resources include Holistic Health and Fitness cognitive performance specialists and occupational therapy assistants, unit or installation Chaplains, local support group networks, on-post Marriage and Family Life Counselors, OneSource counselors available 24/7 for crises, and Lethal Means Safety program elements designed to reduce the use of weapons in suicides. Integrating these and other resources directly into resiliency training enhances program quality and enables Soldiers to develop a custom “safety net” of resiliency resources tailored to their needs.
Critics will say we do not have enough time to add this training to busy unit-level training calendars. They will also assert our Army is going soft by actively addressing emotional health. In truth, our Army is taking a holistic approach to our Soldiers’ health and honoring our obligation to every Soldier and their family by addressing the unique additional stresses of military service. An increased investment in resiliency training will be regained several times over in the preservation of life, improved Soldier well-being, and reduction of harmful events.
As the Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth stated, “The Army is its people, and a strong, healthy, resilient, trained force is the most important indicator of our readiness.” Enhanced Soldier resiliency is a means to reduce and prevent suicide. With cultural change, leader commitment, and more frequent and better resourced unit-level training, the Army will meet the Secretary’s vision of a ready Army.
MG Buzza has served as the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army Forces Command since October 2022. He received his commission from the United States Military Academy in 1988, has commanded Army Reserve units from Company through Division, served in Operation Just Cause in 1989 and holds Master’s degrees in Physical Therapy and Strategic Studies.
