A Marine sergeant runs from an IED blast in Afghanistan in 2009 By Mark Thompson
U.S. Military Suicides in 2012: 155 Days, 154 Dead Read more:
New Pentagon data show U.S. troops are killing themselves at the rate of nearly one a day so far in 2012, 18% above 2011′s corresponding toll. ”The continual rise in the suicide rate has frustrated all in the military,” says Elspeth “Cam” Ritchie, a retired Army colonel and chief psychiatric adviser to the Army surgeon general. “The rise in the suicide rate continues despite numerous recommendations from the Army and DoD task forces.”
There were 154 U.S. military suicides in the first 155 days of 2012, the Associated Press reports, compared to 130 over the same period last year. That’s 50% more than those killed in action in Afghanistan, and the highest suicide toll in the U.S. military since 9/11.
Suicide – and the reasons for it – are a vexing problem for the U.S. military ever since its rate began eclipsing that of the U.S. population. In 2010, the Army noted that “historically, the suicide rate has been significantly lower in the military than among the U.S. civilian population.”
(PHOTOS: Suicide in the Recruiters’ Ranks)
But that began to change as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — initially thought of as short-term affairs — dragged on for years. More critical than their duration was the fact that a relatively small number of U.S. troops kept being sent back for multiple combat tours.
Repeated tours have driven up the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder, which, in turn, generates an increase in suicide attempts among those suffering from PTSD. Even though many troops who have killed themselves did not deploy, they trained amid the dread of those who did. There is a sense, some soldiers say, that suicide — or at least suicide attempts — can be contagious.
“There are two areas which we should explore further,” says Ritchie, a regular Battleland contributor. “The high optempo of deployed units, which means that leaders do not really know their soldiers; and the easy availability of firearms, the `gun in the nightstand,’ which, unfortunately leads to too many impulsive sucides, and occasionally homicides.”
(SPECIAL: America’s Next War)
The Army’s suicide rate eclipsed the age-adjusted civilian rate in 2008, more than six years after the 9/11 attacks that sparked the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Suicide may follow in the wake of its triggers – it can take years for deployments, or the prospect of deployments, to sink in and lead some service personnel to take their own lives. Suicides will likely continue to rise for a while, even as the U.S. military has ended its war in Iraq and winds down its presence in Afghanistan. “It can be called a lagging indicator,” Ritchie says.
That may not make a lot of sense, but no one ever said the act of taking one’s life is logical. If it were, the legions of military mental-health professionals focused on combating it would have figured out how to halt this epidemic by now.
PHOTOS: Battleland Diary, May 25 — June 1
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Today is
How do you turn war off?
The things that we see and hear each day, directly affect the way that we behave. The things that we see and hear each day directly affect our emotions and our ability to handle our thoughts for years.
A Developed mind takes upwards of 27 years of life, and even a fully developed mind can be devastated by sites that are outside the normal for that specific mind.
The Average American do not see war type scenes of unbelievable destruction happening right before their eyes, nor does the average American see scenes of bodies laying right in front of them, mangled from a IED, with no head or arms attached.
The Average American doesn't find himself in a situation where he has to turn into war, meaning, he must become the mindset of a warrior, which is a mindset that allows him to seek out human beings and kill that human being..., any way possible.
The War Mind Set is a mindset of constantly being on the edge, constantly ready to kill, based on the slightest movement, or based on the slightest sound made.
The War Mindset allows the warrior to view killed and mangled bodies as enemies that will never attack again, and it's these types of mutilations that are the acceptable norm that the mind adjusts too.
However, just as difficult as it is to turn a clean and free mind into a war mind that is willing to kill at the drop of a hat, and capable of eating a meal, as blown apart flesh lay all around him, it is equally as difficult to turn a war mind back into a peaceful mind.
Turning a peaceful mind into a war mind requires years of training of a military personnel prior to sending him to war, and requires months of nurturing while the military personnel is actually in a war zone, to ensure that the warrior doesn't fall prey to the enemy or to his own mind.
On the other side of that same coin, turning a war mind back into a peaceful mind, may require twice as much time to adjust to the peaceful environment of day to day life, back at home.
The same degree of training and preparing a man off the street, into a warrior... which take years, should be applied to the adjustment process of retraining the warrier back into the peaceful mind.
This is where the military is failing, by often times, allowing a man who just left the desert war conditions in Afghanistan, placing him back home in his living room, within days. The Transition from being extremely sensitive to every sound made and every movement made around the warrior... to his living room... without time to train the brian that it's no longer in a war scenario, is null and void.
It's always the upper brass who make decisions on military personnel and their well being, but, since the higher ranking brass is no where in site on the battle field, ensures that their decisions are equally as out of touch when it comes to understanding the possible ramifications of the types of scenarios that the young military warrior must learn to organize mentally.
Yet, it is "all of our fault"... that so many military personnel are committing suicide because we don't hold our political leaders accountable for putting our military personnel in a war type situation, especially when the politician didn't ever go to war himself, yet is willing to take a country out.
Over the past 11 years of war, there has been upwards of 20 different issues associated with mal behavior by our military people outside of the U.S., and out of those 20 scenarios, maybe 1 high ranking officer was ever punished or held accountable, which is exactly the problem that currently exists that cause me to be writing these words regarding the subject of military personnel who are committing suicide every day.
Any Leader hat talks loud about what he have this country do, with respect to challenging another country, isn't the right person in the seat of any political office.
In My Opinion
ASMFMB
6/8/2012
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