After a harrowing year, the National Guard takes stock of its mental health

Difficult to tell from these but the fact that operational folks are going to be involved in figuring out what is going on is helpful

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The National Guard reported 120 suicides in 2020, spokesman Wayne Hall told Military Times. It’s a 32-percent jump from 2019′s 90 ― a year that saw a precipitous drop from 136 in 208 ― but relatively on par with the last half -decade. Because of that sharp up-and-down, it’s difficult to say whether either year was an anomaly, and it’ll take more years to establish a pattern.

Regardless, the Guard is trying to take steps in the right direction. A year ago, after taking responsibility of the National Guard Bureau, Army Gen. Dan Hokanson stood up an organizational suicide task force, to bring together all 54 states and jurisdictions and get their feedback on what they see in their culturally and geographically disparate units.