by David Averre at The Daily Mail
Three soldiers at an army base in New York are suspected to have died by suicide within just 48 hours, with one of them being among the last of the troops to leave Afghanistan just one month ago.
Pfc. Tyler Thomas, 21, Spc. Sika Tapueluelu, 26, and Staff Sgt. Angel Green, 24, assigned to the 10th Mountain Division, all died within two days of each other in mid-September at Fort Drum army base in New York.
Staff Sgt. Green, Green, an infantryman assigned to 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment (The Polar Bears), 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, was one of the last soldiers to return home during the chaotic and bloody US pull out of Afghanistan at the end of August and didn’t return to New York until September 6.
Pfc. Thomas died on September 16, before Staff Sgt. Green and Spc. Sika Tapueluelu died a day later.
Major Gen. Milford H. Beagle Jr., division commander, declared he is committed to discovering the reasons behind his soldiers’ deaths which were officially announced by a Fort Drum spokesperson on September 19.
‘Immediately when we have a situation when a Soldier is suspected of taking their own life, we want to know the trigger,’ the commander said in a statement.
‘What are the underlying challenges that contributed to the decision to harm themselves? We want to know what didn’t we catch? What are we missing? This is what our immediate focus is.’
Fort Drum spokesman Lt. Col. Josh Jacques said all three are believed to have been unrelated ‘self-harm incidents’ while unit leaders insisted that each death will be looked at individually.
The division deployed extensively to Iraq and Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and many members of the division participated in the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan last month…
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