A monumental medical and social advance was made in suicide
prevention by the original U S Army Suicide Prevention Plan, (Feb
1985) prepared by the Directorate of Human Resources, Office of the
Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. The Plan called on each U S Army
base to develop and publish an installation Suicide Prevention Plan. The
plan was to provide for active duty units, Army families, the Army
Community, and civilian employees of the Army. Among its many
initiatives were several concerned with collaboration with civilian
communities and other public and private sector mental health and crisis
intervention resources.
The Navy issued its program in 1987, and the Air Force issued formal
policy guidance in 1997 on implementing their suicide prevention
program. Since the USAF 1997-policy statement follows my dated
copies of the Army and Navy programs by about a decade, I assume
that it conforms to more recent DoD medical policies on the subject and
perhaps even reviewed and commented upon by the other Services. The
following is from the USAF Policy Letter Digest December 1997
(Source: World Wide Web, search title: 'Air Force Policy Letter
Digest').