Is some sort of Haitian Stress Syndrome at work? In the first month of Operation Restore Democracy, U.S. forces suffered more suicides than battle casualties. It wasn’t clear that any of the three suicides was due primarily to service in Haiti. Col. Barry Willey, a spokesman for the U.S. command, called them ““separate and isolated’’ events, even though two occurred in the same 600-man battalion of the 10th Division. But the bare statistic – three suicides among the 16,000 Americans currently in Haiti – was alarming. During 15 months of dangerous and frustrating duty in Somalia, there was only one suicide among 96,000 American troops. And during a shooting war in the Persian Gulf, only eight of 650,000 U.S. military personnel killed themselves.
Compared with some other missions, Haitian duty is not all that bad; so far, there have been only two combat wounds, both nonfatal. But when troops go anywhere, they take their emotional baggage with them, and the burden often grows heavier away from family and friends. The GIs in Haiti come from a military establishment increasingly pressured by force reductions, career instability and wrenching deployments. ““It seems like every year we go somewhere,’’ complains Pfc. Kevin Wills, 21, who cleaned up after Hurricane Andrew in Florida and now is on duty in Haiti. Military families suffer from the stress; cases of spousal abuse have risen nearly 30 percent in five years, according to Pentagon statistics.
Among the troops in Haiti, the pressures have caused ““a high number of serious mental disorders,’’ says psychiatrist Capt. Donald Hall of the army’s 528th Combat Stress Control Detachment. During the first week of the operation, when Hall was in Haiti, about 10 soldiers required psychiatric evacuation, he says, including a ““pretty serious’’ case of conversion disorder, a form of paralysis ““often associated with emotional problems.''
New soldiers are not immune to military stress; all three suicide victims were young. Spec. Alejandro Robles, the other member of the 10th Division, was only 20 when he shot himself. Marine Lance Cpl. Maurice Williams was 21 when he died, also of a gunshot wound, on board the USS Nashville. ““It bothers us that these men were so despondent and none of us knew it,’’ says Maj. Gen. David Meade, commander of the 10th. ““There may be more men out there like that.''
Despite the lack of fighting, troops live with battlefield discomfort. Many are still in tents, still eating bland prepackaged meals. With temperatures in the 80s, they sweat under their helmets and flak jackets – ““Jenny Craig on the cheap,’’ jokes one lieutenant. They still have no regular phone service. Mail, showers and laundry only recently became available. Supply lines were originally prepared for a fighting invasion; only now are they switching from ammunition to creature comforts.
Many soldiers were unprepared for the squalor of the hemisphere’s poorest country. When Pfc. Gina Honey, a 21-year-old MP, first drove through Port-au-Prince, her instant reaction was ““Oh, my God – the smell!’’ She was stunned by the ramshackle poverty and unsanitary conditions. ““I’ve never seen such filth,’’ she says. ““These poor people. It’s really painful.''
The mission can also be intensely frustrating. Haitians seem to expect the Americans to put everything right – to provide housing and jobs, to disarm the ubiquitous ““attaches’’ who propped up the old regime. The troops cannot live up to those expectations, and they know it. What frustrates some of them even more is that they have no enemy to attack. ““People were geared up to do a lot of fighting, and then they didn’t,’’ says psychiatrist Hall. ““That left a lot of aggressive energy with no place to go.’’ The unfought war may explain why the suicide rate is higher than in Somalia or the gulf. The lack of a battlefield catharsis is another form of stress – one that may become familiar as U.S. troops police the new world order.
