<p>The study, to be undertaken by the Army and the National Institute of Mental Health, will cover 90,000 active-duty soldiers and all new Army recruits, 80,000 to 120,000 per year, New York Times reported.<br /><br />The recruits are to answer confidential surveys that might include questions on whether they owned motorcycles, used drugs or liked to bungee-jump, Colonel Bruce Shahbaz, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and one of the three main authors of a recent Army suicide report, said.<br /><br />There will be cognitive tests to measure reactions to stress as well as an in-depth look at a recruit’s family background and genetics.<br /><br />"We've never been at war for as long as we've been, and we don't know the effects of that," Shahbaz said, referring to the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.<br /><br />"It will give us an assessment of someone's cognitive style and whether they have a history that draws them to high -risk behaviors," New York Times quoted Thomas R Insel, the director at the National Institute of Mental Health.<br /><br />The military says the people who enlist to serve their country have always included plenty of adrenaline addicts, which recruiters say is a good thing when troops are needed to jump out of airplanes and go on raids in Afghanistan.<br /><br />But military researchers say they have been compelled to take a deeper look at the psychological demographic of an all-volunteer force during the most prolonged period of combat in American history.</p>.<p>Shahbaz said the Army wants to know whether risk- takers are more likely to commit suicide or die in accidents, and whether a predisposition to risk-taking is increased by combat.<br /><br />There were a record 160 active-duty suicides in the US Army in the year from October 1, 2008, to September 30, 2009, the Times said.<br /><br /><br /></p>
<p>The study, to be undertaken by the Army and the National Institute of Mental Health, will cover 90,000 active-duty soldiers and all new Army recruits, 80,000 to 120,000 per year, New York Times reported.<br /><br />The recruits are to answer confidential surveys that might include questions on whether they owned motorcycles, used drugs or liked to bungee-jump, Colonel Bruce Shahbaz, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and one of the three main authors of a recent Army suicide report, said.<br /><br />There will be cognitive tests to measure reactions to stress as well as an in-depth look at a recruit’s family background and genetics.<br /><br />"We've never been at war for as long as we've been, and we don't know the effects of that," Shahbaz said, referring to the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.<br /><br />"It will give us an assessment of someone's cognitive style and whether they have a history that draws them to high -risk behaviors," New York Times quoted Thomas R Insel, the director at the National Institute of Mental Health.<br /><br />The military says the people who enlist to serve their country have always included plenty of adrenaline addicts, which recruiters say is a good thing when troops are needed to jump out of airplanes and go on raids in Afghanistan.<br /><br />But military researchers say they have been compelled to take a deeper look at the psychological demographic of an all-volunteer force during the most prolonged period of combat in American history.</p>.<p>Shahbaz said the Army wants to know whether risk- takers are more likely to commit suicide or die in accidents, and whether a predisposition to risk-taking is increased by combat.<br /><br />There were a record 160 active-duty suicides in the US Army in the year from October 1, 2008, to September 30, 2009, the Times said.<br /><br /><br /></p>