“Most Americans believe the hundreds of soldiers (and many more veterans) who kill themselves every year do so over lingering combat trauma. They’re likely wrong. Financial Planning senior editor Ann Marsh’s investigation into military suicide turned a spotlight on an overlooked but leading factor in the epidemic: financial distress. The month following publication in May, a congressman relied on Financial Planning’s findings to craft legislation — which passed — to study the links between financial stress and military suicide, and seek more effective interventions. The proposal was added to the 2015 federal spending plan and signed into law in December. Strikingly, while most Americans believe lingering combat trauma is causing most soldiers to kill themselves, Financial Planning’s investigation found that more than 80% of suicides were among soldiers who did not see combat — and more than half of the suicides in 2012 were among soldiers who never even deployed. Reporting over 11 months and dozens of interviews presented steep challenges because the Pentagon gathers few statistics about its financial planning programs. However, Marsh eventually learned key facts about how the Defense Department handles its soldiers’ and veterans’ financial problems. The agency doesn’t allow the financial planners that it hires to provide actual planning assistance, only generic advice; planners who help soldiers in crisis risk being fired — as were planners featured in the story. Separately, all active-duty soldiers who kill themselves trigger high insurance payouts for their survivors. The subject of financial distress as a factor in this epidemic has gone almost entirely unaddressed. The topic “has not had any piece of the attention that has been paid to suicide in the military,” Marsh quoted the congressman who sponsored the legislation as saying in a follow-up story. The Army sergeant at the center of the story, Angelo Stevens was living under the cloud of $100,000 in debt that was threatening his security clearance and his continued employment. Two of his children were seriously ill. “If I’m dead my family can get $500,000 in life insurance, but I have to kill myself,” he said — a quote the congressman later read on the floor of the House. Only after a financial planner, against military policy, risked her job to help him did Stevens see another way forward. Marsh interviewed dozens of serving members of the armed forces, financial planners, experts on stress in the military, and officials at the Pentagon. She continually pressed Defense Department officials for data and explanations, and received some key statistics and other data that had not been published previously. She persuaded proud, serving members of the military to talk of their fears for their families, their humiliation after falling into deep financial trouble, and their difficulty within the military’s command structure and macho culture of admitting their problems and seeking help. The main article was accompanied by a sidebar that outlined eight strategies to help troops with financial strife.”
