It was just past midnight in Afghanistan when Brig. Gen.
Mark Milley appeared on the video screen in the Pentagon
conference room to brief some of the Army's top generals on
a sobering development: his unit's most recent confirmed
suicide.
A 19-year-old private, working a night shift at his base,
had shot himself a few weeks earlier. "There was no
indication that he would harm himself, he had not been seen
by the chaplain, no intimate relationships," Milley said,
running through warning signs.
In the Pentagon, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the Army's vice
chief of staff, homed in on one detail. The soldier worked a
job that often entailed long, solitary hours. In scouring
the Army's suicide statistics, Chiarelli had noticed a
slight suicide increase among those who worked such
positions. Milley said that going forward none of the 20,000
soldiers under his command would routinely work by themselves.
