This year's Army suicides are on track to surpass the number of troops killed this year in Iraq.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old Army psychiatrist who was about to be deployed to Afghanistan, killed 13 soldiers and injured 31 others in Fort Hood, Texas before being shot and killed by police.

The U.S. Army has announced it will require all 1.1 million of its soldiers to undergo mental stress training, which includes dealing with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts.

Army, Navy and Air Force officials are partly attributing a spike in applications to their military schools to the recession in the U.S.

The Army has ordered a suicide-prevention stand-down after suicides doubled from eight in April to 17 in May. There have been 85 Army suicides to date this year, more than twice as many as this date last year.

The Army says it wants to scale back its "stop-loss" program, which keeps troops active past their final enlistment date. Military officials say they could possibly eliminate the program within two years.

A week after announcing Army suicides were at a 30-year high, military officials say there has been a "terrifying" jump in suicides this past January. At least 24 soldiers killed themselves last month, a six-fold increase from last January.

Show support for our troops... with an Army vehicle piñata? (via Boing Boing)