Obama to remember kin of suicide troops

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Wednesday that he had decided to reverse a long-standing policy of not sending condolence letters to the families of service members who commit suicide while in a combat zone.

Mental-health and troop advocacy groups welcomed the change as a step in the right direction but said that those who die outside the war zones also should be recognized and that more should be done to combat suicides among service members.

The president said the decision was made after an exhaustive review of the previous policy and was not taken lightly.

"This issue is emotional, painful, and complicated, but these Americans served our nation bravely. They didn't die because they were weak," Obama said in a written statement. "And the fact that they didn't get the help they needed must change."

The policy had been under review by the White House since 2009 as some military families pushed for the change. Service-member suicides have increased as the United States has fought two overseas wars, with some troops serving repeated tours of duty and suffering post-traumatic stress and other problems.

Paul Rieckhoff, head of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said that it's "long past time for our nation to formally recognize the loss" of those troops.

Figures released by the armed services earlier this year by congress.org showed an increase in suicides in 2010. The services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty personnel in 2009.

The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat, excluding accidents and illness. The figures tend to understate the problem because the services do not report statistics uniformly.