Troubled recruiting battalion gets new command - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Troubled recruiting battalion gets new command

HOUSTON — An Army recruiting battalion in which four soldiers committed suicide was placed under new leadership after an investigation into those deaths, Brig. Gen. Frank Turner said Friday.

Turner, who met with U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and recruiters from the Houston Recruiting Battalion, said the cluster of suicides were the result of a number of factors, but some of the command’s practices were outside Army regulation.

Some recruiters and their family members had complained that recruiters, already subject to long hours and pressure to meet quotas, were threatened and humiliated when they failed.

“Some of the leadership practices occurring here in Houston by a couple of individuals — not all but a couple — were clearly outside the acceptable practices of leadership inside the Army,” Turner said.

The new leadership seems to be improving the climate, he said, and it will be reviewed by June.

Sgt. 1st Class Walter Kniffen, who has been in the Houston battalion for two years, said the climate under the old command was tough.

“It was a little more high stressed,” he said. “You would get in situations, if you have a station manager who is getting badgered, and recruiters then, you’re going to have that climate.”

Cornyn, R-Texas, met with Kniffen and other recruiters Friday, a week after the recruiting command held a special training day to talk to recruiters about handling the stress of trying to fill an all-volunteer Army at war while isolated from other soldiers and support systems.

Cornyn said he would continue to push for more suicide prevention and aid for all soldiers.

Four members of the Houston battalion, all combat veterans, committed suicide between 2005 and 2008; it was the only battalion among 38 nationwide to report more than one death since 2003. There have been 16 suicides among all recruiters since 2003.

The recruiter deaths come amid a growing number of suicides Armywide. The Army has seen increased suicide rates in each of the last four years and is now investigating a spike in apparent suicides in January.