10 Deaths in 10 Months: String of suicides on a single aircraft carrier

On the morning of April 11, Capt. Brent Gaut, the commander of the USS George Washington — an aircraft carrier undergoing major shipyard work at Newport News, Virginia — got on the ship’s intercom.

Two sailors had died on April 9 and 10, and Gaut was alerting the crew that those deaths were the eighth and ninth suicides the ship had experienced in nine months, three sailors who heard the announcement told Military.com on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation.

One explained that Gaut, talking to the crew first thing in the morning, went on to tell sailors to reach out and talk to someone if they needed help and that resources were available to them. That sailor described it as what “they say after they have a suicide every time.”

Four days after the announcement, another sailor was “found unresponsive on board the ship,” a Navy spokesperson confirmed to Military.com, and the sailor later died at a hospital in Newport News.

Two of the sailors who spoke with Military.com said that Gaut later told the crew that the latest death was a member of the ship’s security team, who had a self-inflicted wound.

Suicides have risen sharply in the military. In 2020, 384 active-duty service members died by suicide, a 44% increase from 2015. Since 2014, 4,842 service members have killed themselves. In a recent hearing, congressional lawmakers said the military is not doing nearly enough to prevent these deaths. Despite the persistence of the problem, a cluster of suicides like Gaut described to his crew is still highly unusual.

> World