Disturbing: War thirsts for blood. Soldiers in demand. Pressure on recruiters: 17 died by their own hand since '01

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Amanda Henderson's husband Patrick worked as a recruiter at the army's recruitment station in Longview, Texas. A veteran of the Iraq war, Sgt. 1st Class Henderson struggled with the pressures placed on recruiters, who until recently were ordered to enlist at least two new soldiers each month. Forced to work long hours at a task he didn't want, Henderson hanged himself in a shed behind his house in September, 2008.

Sgt. Henderson's situation was not atypical. The Hendersons met at recruiting school and were married in January 2008. She worked at a recruiting station in Nagadoches, Texas, 70 miles away from the station in Longview where Patrick was assigned. Henderson was forced into a second recruiting assignment he didn't want after he returned from a combat tour in Iraq.

Nils Aron Andersson served two tours in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne. Awarded the Bronze Star for helping some buddies pinned down in a firefight, Andersson, photographed above with his mother Charlotte Porter, also worked in the Houston area as a recruiter. Like all recruiters, Andersson trained at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and joined the recruiting force in 2005. "They were working the crap out of him," his dad says. "I'd get calls from him at 9:30 at night 11:30 in Houston — and he'd say he was just leaving the recruiting office and starting on his 40-minute drive home."

In the week before his suicide, Andersson was ordered to write three separate essays explaining his failure to line up a prospective recruit. On March 5, 2007, after arguing with his new wife, he killed himself with a gun. "For the two years he was in Iraq," Robert says, "I'd turn down the street and be terrified there'd be a car with a set of government plates on it when I got home telling me that he'd been killed. Suicide was the last scenario I'd ever come up with."

Though the events of September 11, 2001 inspired many to enlist, the Army has struggled to keep its ranks filled in the last few years. Responsibility for providing troop replacements has fallen to non-commissioned officers who have chosen to make recruiting their career in the U.S. Army Recruiting Command (USAREC). They, in turn, put pressure on front-line recruiters, many of whom themselves are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the hefty enlistment bonuses offered by the Army, the continuing wars have forced the Army to relax its recruiting standards.

Amanda, who has lost her boss and husband to suicide in the last year, has left recruiting and returned her former job as a supply sergeant. Amanda preserves Patrick's bar-napkin proposal to her. "Some days I say I've got to go on," she says. "Other days I'll just sit and cry all day long."

In the summer of 2008, Amanda's boss at the Nagadoches recruiting station (above), Staff Sgt. Larry Flores, committed suicide. Since 2001, 17 recruiters have died by their own hand. The rate of suicide in the recruiting corps is triple that of the overal Army. Army leaders have declared the overall rate — higher than the civilian rate last year for the first time since the Army began tracking suicides in 1980 — "very disturbing."

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Photos courtesy of Ashley Gilbertson / VII Network / Time

Original Source: Time