Editor’s note: This report contains discussion of suicide. Troops, veterans and family members experiencing suicidal thoughts can call the 24-hour Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 and dial 1, text 838255 or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net.
Despite a military suicide rate that has generally continued to climb since 2011, most military services don’t have accountability measures to ensure troops are taking required prevention training. And, according to a new report from the top federal watchdog organization, they don’t know if the training actually makes a difference.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office, published Wednesday, found that each of the four largest military service branches — Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps — had latitude to create their own nonclinical suicide prevention training, which each service administers on an annual basis.
The Army and the Navy each allow unit commanders to develop their own alternative trainings “as long as these trainings meet certain objectives,” according to the report.
The Army’s training regimen, according to the report, includes its “Ask, Care, Escort” bystander training program, also shared by the Air Force and National Guard Bureau.
The Marine Corps’ training doesn’t follow a named program, but emphasizes awareness and “Think/Decide/Act” decision-making. The Navy is the only service with a training description that includes firearms safety, though the Air Force has a unit discussing safe weapon storage and security.
In 2024, the most recent year observed in the new report, 471 troops died by suicide. That was down from 523 in 2023, but significantly up from 299 in 2011, the year the Pentagon started to collect suicide data.
The GAO report notes that the services received a mandate in the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act to standardize reporting of suicides, and that all services are required to provide suicide prevention training to their troops, though they are allowed to determine for themselves the frequency and content of the training.
Despite the requirements, though, only the Air Force and National Guard reported that they monitor whether troops complete the training. Air Force leaders said they don’t do anything to address noncompletion of training, though, and Guard Bureau leaders said the training data they collected was “incomplete and inconsistent.”
“Until each of the military services takes steps to identify noncompletion and notify prevention personnel at the appropriate level within commands when training is not completed, the services will not be able to fully ensure that training learning objectives are reaching military service members as intended — for example, recognizing risk factors and warning signs for suicide,” GAO investigators wrote.
Once training is administered, most of the services take some steps to gauge its effectiveness, such as a post-training survey or knowledge check.
The Navy alone reported having none of these training evaluation measures. But, GAO said, none of the service evaluation strategies meet Pentagon standards, which require assessing both “process metrics and outcome metrics to account for different needs and be able to assess for effectiveness among the intended target population.”
The report also noted that suicide prevention training could soon get combined with other trainings in the wake of a Pentagon review initiated by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The review of trainings and their contribution to “the lethality of the force” found suicide prevention training ranked 5th out of 18. It ranked third out of 18 in contributions to force readiness, GAO said.
“The review recommended combining suicide prevention training with four other trainings related to self-directed harm and prohibited abusive or harmful acts,” the GAO report said. “Specifically, it recommended integrating domestic abuse, harassment prevention and response, sexual assault prevention and response, suicide prevention, and substance misuse and gambling disorder into a single annual training course.”
That recommendation runs counter to findings from an independent review committee, which suggested separate, targeted suicide prevention trainings developed “for different audiences and for intended effect.”
No decision has been made on a future plan, GAO said.
The report recommended that the Pentagon require the services to report annual suicide prevention training completion data, and that service secretaries create ways to follow up with troops who don’t complete required training. It also called for the services to develop plans for evaluating the effectiveness of their training programs.
All recommendations remain open, according to the report.
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