WASHINGTON — Morale has fallen among soldiers in Afghanistan, where troops are seeing record violence in the 8-year-old war, while those in Iraq show much improved mental health amid much lower violence, the Army said Friday. It was the first time since 2004 that soldier suicides in Iraq did not increase. Self-inflicted deaths in Afghanistan were on track to go up this year.

Though findings of two new battlefield surveys are similar in several ways to the last ones taken in 2007, they come at a time of intense scrutiny on Afghanistan as President Barack Obama struggles to craft a new war strategy and planned troop buildup. There is also new focus on the mental health of the force since a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last week in which an Army psychiatrist is charged.

Both surveys showed that soldiers on their third or fourth tours of duty had lower morale and more mental health problems than those with fewer deployments. And an increasing number of troops are having problems with their marriages.

The new survey on Afghanistan found instances of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress at about the same as they were in 2007 but double 2005’s cases. That was 21.4 percent in 2009, 23.4 percent in 2007 and 10.4 percent in 2005.

That compares to a lower 13.3 percent in Iraq, down from 18.8 percent in 2007 and 22 percent in 2006. (Surveys have been done every year in Iraq, but were only done during three years in Afghanistan.)

The Afghan report also found a shortage of mental health workers to help soldiers who needed it, partly because of the buildup Obama started this year with the dispatch of more than 20,000 extra troops.

Efforts to get more health workers to Afghanistan were made a little harder by last week’s shooting. The psychiatrist charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder was slated to go to Afghanistan. Some of the dead and wounded also were to deploy there to bolster psychological services for soldiers.

Still, officials told a Pentagon press conference that they expect to meet their goal next month of having one mental health worker for every 700 troops – workers that include psychiatrists, social workers, psychiatric nurses and so on. There were 43 in Afghanistan at the time of the survey, while 103 were deemed needed; and since the survey, there has been what Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker on Friday called an aggressive push to send the rest.—————————————–>

The new Afghanistan survey found that individual soldier morale was about the same as previous studies, but that unit morale rates were significantly lower.

For instance, when asked about their own morale, 17.6 percent rated it high or very high, down from 15.4 percent in 2007 and 23 percent in 2005. When asked about their unit, only 5.7 percent gave the two highest ratings, a decrease from 10.2 percent in 2007 and 10.5 percent in 2005.

The findings come from surveys and interviews with troops and mental health workers at the wars.

In Iraq, some 2,400 soldiers in randomly selected platoons filled out surveys from December 2008 through March 2009 and a mental health assessment team went to the warfront for a month starting in late February to analyze the results and hold interviews and focus groups. In Afghanistan, more than 1,500 troops in more than 50 platoons filled out the surveys from April to June, and the assessment team when through the same process from May through June.

It’s the sixth such survey, a program that was groundbreaking when started in 2003 in that it was the biggest effort ever made to measure the health of troops – and the services they receive – right at the warfront in the middle of a military campaign.

The survey was different from previous ones in that it sampled two types of platoons. Some were maneuver units that warfighting groups engaged in combat-related tasks and others were support units such as aviation, engineering and medical elements less likely to have as much direct exposure to violence.

Other findings of the Afghanistan survey included:

_Junior enlisted soldiers reported significantly more marital problems than noncommissioned officers, stating they intended to get a divorce or that they suspected their spouses back home of infidelity.

_Exposure to combat, long recognized as a strong factor in mental health problems, was significantly higher this year than rates in 2005 and similar to rates in 2007 for the combat units.

_Combat units reported significantly lower unit morale in the last six months of their tours of duty, more evidence of the wearing affect of long deployments.

_Troops in their third or fourth deployment reported significantly more acute stress and other psychological problems, and among those married, reported significantly more marital problems compared to soldiers on their first or second deployment.

_Troops who spent two to four hours daily playing video games or surfing the Internet as a way to cope helped lower their psychological problems, but spending time beyond that – three to four hours – had the opposite effect. Those who exercised or did other physical training decreased their mental problems, regardless of the time spent.

_Troops reported more and better training in suicide prevention and other mental health programs that the Army has been increasing over recent years in an unprecedented effort to focus on the force’s mental health.

“Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to face stress from multiple deployments into combat but report being more prepared for the stresses of deployments,” Schoomaker said.

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Associated Press writer Kimberly Hefling contributed to this report.”

___CONITUED FROM THE ABOVE QUOTE OF MESSENGER ELIJAH MUHAMMAD,”

 She boasts of her material and being able to destroy the people of earth thirty times. If she was left free to use her material maybe America could win, but the divine die was set against her long before she ever became America.3 She can try and boast of her idea of mind to deceive her Black slaves, but she will deceive herself and them. America is made manifest, by Almighty God, in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, to Whom praises are due forever, that she is total and deadly enemy against her once slaves.

4 For many years, I have written that America’s greatest sin is her evil done to her Black slaves. Allah (God) intends to repay her for what she has done.

5 She deceives the Black slaves right at the point of total destruction. She tries to woo the so-called Negro with false and temporary promises by offering him high political jobs to keep him from turning his attention to self and kind. The Black politician could and should use his political knowledge to benefit self and kind.

6 White America isolates the Messenger of God from their minds with these false promises and makes them to hate the Messenger of God and to work against him although the Messenger of God is working for the interests of the Black slaves.

7 The eyes and ears of Allah (God) are open, looking and listening to their actions. It is not necessary for Allah (God) to use mechanical devices. Allah (God) is physically real and He has real physical eyes and ears. He is capable of seeing and hearing everything we do and say. He has power to defeat us in our plans which are against His plans.

8 The American slave-holders want to deceive the so-called Negro into believing that Allah (God) is not paying attention to them. The white man wants them to believe that he is the god that they should pay attention to.

9 I warn my people who believe in the idea that the white man is the god they should pay attention to. You will come up the loser.

10 Allah (God) is backing me up in the work He has given me to do. The work He has given me to do is for your own Black salvation. If you think that you have salvation with the white man, then go ahead with him. I am not here to force you against your own will, but I want you to know that if you are looking to white America for your salvation you are headed with them to your and their destruction.

11 There is no hope for America to win the war. There is no hope for the Black man in the future of America for America has no future for herself. She will not be able to win the war.

12 The scholars and the scientists know that America cannot win. It is not just I, alone, saying this.

13 Scholars and scientists will tell us America cannot win and we know by divine prophecy that America cannot win.

14 If it were just Russia, China, Viet Nam and Korea using their judgment of how best to destroy each other, maybe America could win; for she has as much as they have in war material and scientific preparation.

15 America is capable of going out of the atmosphere of the earth and to fight them from there, but she will not be able to go out of the atmosphere of the earth and destroy the Black Man of the Earth.

16 It is only a mistake that one should believe in America’s ability to build a way-station in the air or on the moon for she will not be able to use it against us, for the divine plan is set to destroy her.

17 We have many things out there in space that can be brought into action against America or any other nation today; for Allah is the Greatest.”