Faced with rising rates of suicide and depression, the US Army plans mandatory training for the entire force designed to make soldiers emotionally "resilient." With soldiers suffering under the strain of repeated combat tours, Army commanders have launched the unprecedented initiative to help troops better handle stress before it turns into a debilitating mental health crisis, officers said.
Starting October 1, all active-duty, reserve and National Guard soldiers will be required to take a "resiliency" test that will assess their emotional, spiritual and physical state. "How often do you feel that you lack friendship?" and "How often do you feel left out?" are among the 170 questions. The effort "seeks to educate soldiers to overcome hardships and adverse events, bounce back, and grow stronger in the process," the Army said in a summary of the "comprehensive soldier fitness program."
The soldiers' answers in the test will remain confidential and will have no influence on their careers, said Brigadier General Rhonda Cornum, who is overseeing the program. "It is not intended to be a screening tool for anything," she said. The test results will be passed on to the soldier, who then must select a resiliency training course based on those results. "It was developed because we recognised that we really did not have a good preventive and strengthening model for psychological health," said Cornum.
"It's just a recognition that we spend an enormous amount of energy and resources on people after they've had some negative outcome, but we're not doing anything deliberately as a preventive measure," she said. The program comes as the Army has struggled to come to grips with suicides and other signs of duress among troops fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Our younger people are having more trouble than anybody else," said Cornum.