Suicide alert among soldier : Canada as an example

According to several psychiatrists and psychologists, the crisis of suicides would be connected to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), caused by the hardships, traumas, and plague that people might underwent and therefore affects their psychological sides. Moreover, the majority of cases is happening once the person returned to the house and not when he/she is on the outside. This allows to see that the problem is mainly due to the fact that some people have a lot of difficulties to reintegrate into society following an atrocious mission.

In addition, the crisis of suicide not only affects men but also women as for example in the case of the restated corporal, Leona MacEachern, would have voluntarily crashed into a truck in a frontal collision on the Trans-Canada highway . In a letter to the chain of Canadian television CTV, Tom MacEachern has mentioned that his wife having served 20 years in the Canadian Forces had received treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) before committing suicide. In sum, other Canadian families are also affected by other similar cases which leaves nobody indifferent.

This statement has created a deep sense of bitterness for several members or ex-members of the Forces. Which Senator Romeo Dallaire, general ex-lieutenant of the Canadian army,who at the head of the United Nations forces, has helplessly witnessed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 "when I am told that it is not worse than the civilian world, i find it absurd. Do not come and tell me that when one lives this experience and that it is found in a different environment where the family is splashed with the holidays that are coming and the isolation ... it can be expected that the people take a radical decision".

Therefore, according to Romeo Dallaire, we should do more to help the new veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Defence officials have released the name of a soldier at CFB Valcartier in Quebec who died Dec. 2, the fourth apparent Canadian Forces suicide in a week.