More US Service Members Committed Suicide In 2010 Than Died In Combat
We talk about the trillions of dollars added to the deficit because of our occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan...but how can you monetize this very real and very painful cost?
For the second year in a row, more American soldiers—both enlisted men and women and veterans—committed suicide than were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Excluding accidents and illness, 462 soldiers died in combat, while 468 committed suicide. A difference of six isn't vast by any means, but the symbolism is significant and troubling. In 2009, there were 381 suicides by military personnel, a number that also exceeded the number of combat deaths.
Earlier this month, military authorities announced that suicides amongst active-duty soldiers had slowed in 2010, while suicides amongst reservists and people in the National Guard had increased. It was proof, they said, that the frequent psychological screenings active-duty personnel receive were working, and that reservists and guardsmen, who are more removed from the military's medical bureaucracy, simply need to begin undergoing more health checks. This new data, that American soldiers are now more dangerous to themselves than the insurgents, flies right in the face of any suggestion that things are "working." Even if something's working, the system is still very, very broken.
One of the problems hindering the military's attempt to address soldier suicides is that there's no real rhyme or reason to what kind of soldier is killing himself. While many suicide victims are indeed afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after facing heavy combat in the Middle East, many more have never even been deployed. Of the 112 guardsmen who committed suicide last year, more than half had never even left American soil.
It sickens me. Every week as I do the In Memoriam post, I read so many of the service members official cause of death as "non-combat related" and my heart grieves, because I know that's likely a suicide. All those months of separation, the unrelenting stress of being under fire, the inability to adjust back to a non-combat life. It's all a vicious cycle. But there are people trying to be part of the solution
Were any of these vets of vietnam or any other war? Regardless, it's such an awful reality. Does it mean that your chances of killing yourself are more likely than being killed in battle? Okay, I'm gonna need a minute or two to try to process the news in this post.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
Michele Bachmann calls for cuts to veterans benefits
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Does she mention how many in her family are vets? Does she know what benefits vets receive? Does she even know a vet? Probably were she asked these questions she would make up a story just like she does about everything else.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
She would simply recite from her talking points. The way the baggers always, always do.
Insanity is asking a republican a question over and over and expecting an answer to that question.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Sarah Brightman/Kazim Al Sahir - War is Over
I have a solution:
Court martial ANY officer or NCO who knowingly punishes or dismisses a soldier for expressing he may have PTSD. Calling a mentally-wounded soldier, who is a danger to himself and his unit, a "pussy" should be the last thing a combat leader says before they get a dishonorable discharge.
The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a Lunatic Asylum. -Havelock Ellis
in combat units
we have no national consensus, the potus has never requested a declaration of war from congress. stop loss, the poverty draft, christian warriors, plain old psychos, racists itching to waste a "hajj", makes for a pretty fractured situation.
ever wonder why they don't institute a draft? they say never ask a question you don't know the answer to.
there is no draft because it would have to include women, and no college deferment, equal protection and all that; congress critters don't want to see their precious preppie children in the line of fire. think there were draft riots when honest abe instituted it during the civil war? just wait until we get into another real war.
so the war profiteers make out like bandits, while the grunts get squat, and their families are on food stamps, doesn't seem quite equitable.
there is no draft because it would then put everyone's children at risk, resulting in the type of anti-war riots not seen since the 60's. this would not be good for politicians or the war business. far easier to rely on those foolish enough to volunteer.
are you implying that the dynamic derek could be mistaken? i demand satisfaction! choose your weapon! knives, guns, clubs, it don't matter, at first you think you can't take it, but then you realize the pain don't matter.......
ok, i submit to your demands,
"think there were draft riots when honest abe instituted it during the civil war? just wait until we get into another real war."
yup, onward christian soldiers, we'll just put it on the visa, the total combat video game, but be quiet children, let grandma sleep, at least until the government comes to get her....
look what mommy got you for christmas
but goes deeper. The reason they don't institutue a draft is because of what they learned from vietnam:
If the majority of people do not have to worry about the war personally touching them, inconveniencing them or disrupting their lives, it becomes hightly unlikely that the populace will ever arise in opposition to wars, giving the war instigators and warmakers a blank check to do as they please, pretty much for as long as they please. That is also the reason why they are financing these illegal wars of aggrssion and subsequent illegal occupations on the credit card: If they raised taxes to pay for the waging of war, which is something that would almost certainly happen if the wars were being founght for legitimate reasons, the American People would not tolerate it. Despite the pervasive spin from a unified, top-down directed propaganda appartatus that massquerades as the MSM/press, the average person is going to figure out pretty quickly they are being asked to sacrifice to no legitimate purpose. Again, they wouldn't tolerate it. The purpose of the current people is to wage wars that never end. Ever. they will fail in that goal, but no draft and no war taxes will prolong by a huge measure how long they can play their scams against the American People.
...when you consider the Iraq war's 41% "friendly fire" casualty rate. Good post here: http://www.anti-republicanculture.com/2009/12... (http://*******.com/4rhuq8w). Looks like the majority of our service personnel are being killed by their brothers-in-arms or their own hands. This adds up to a tragedy too horrible to contemplate.
that said, i must also (someone must) point out the obvious, that everyone else conveniently ignores:
most of those currently in the military joined up after the start of both the wars. they knew exactly what they were getting into, and volunteered for it. unlike vietnam, there are no draftees in our military now, so my compassion level is somewhat muted.
i know that sounds harsh, but when you know full well what's in store going in, and you do so voluntarily (without the country's security directly at stake), my sympathy meter drops accordingly.
It needed sayin .
this is experience talking from the Vietnam era.....when you are young, you do not believe in your guts that you are mortal and you do not believe in your guts that you are not invulnerable. Add to that that virtually everybody who has joined up since these wars started has lived their entire lives in a propaganda bubble that is so pervasive and so unrelenting that the lies that are crafted to very effectivdely manipulate are not seen or taken as lies; instead, they form underlying cultural paradigms, which are unquestioningly taken as the basis of reality. Paradigms are immensely powerful things, cultural paradigms even more so. They operate upon people without their conscious knowledge, shaping pretty much the totality of thinking and awareness for most people. They have the power to entirely determine what one percieves or doesn't. Almost no one questions them, because how can one question something that they are not even aware exists or is operative in their lives? Almost no one questions what they take to be reality.
Shaping cultural paradigms has always been the goal of subverting journalism in America and replacing it with the propaganda organs that most Americans now accept as truth-speaking sources of information. That process of subversion and subornment was conceived in, and toward the end of, the Nixon administration and has been put in place over the course of two generations. They had their plan and they have diligently worked it to completion. We see the results today.
I do not believe that any free society can survive without a stronly functioning arm legitimate, free independent journalism.
Disgusts me to the max , we rightfully morn our soldiers , but what about the innocent Iraqis and Afghans ? They did not volunteer for this shit ! Human beings same as us . How many have we killed ? Imagine the hell we have put them through and the hell we created for them , how many wounded and maimed , how many morning the loss of a loved one , wife , husband , child , baby , relative , friend , how many refugees have we created ? Nah , they don't count do they ? We don't count them do we ? We don't bother , better to sweep it under the rug . Never a mention of them ! Some how we are not liable in any way and or they are not worth caring about , they are sub humans , we GD Americans are superior and exceptional beings , right ? That our soldiers are defending our freedom and are defending us over there , what load of bullshit !
are ~1.4 million Iraqis killed, over 2 million maimed, and ~ 3 million turned into refugees. Innocents. All so that the Carlisle group, raytheon, Haliurton, KBR and the usual list of suspects could fatten their profits.
and expect that it will not deeply corrode your soul. It's worse for those who thoroughly bought into the propaganda about God, Flag, country, honor and all the other lies that are used to manipulate and twist the better impulses of the young to dark and evil purposes that proceed under the guise of patriotic endeavors. Before it is over, I suspect that suicides will exceed the total number of combat deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
We need to get out of both places. We need to stop waging illegal wars of aggression. Forever. We need to dismantle the military/war profiteering sector and reduce our military only to that level that is necessary to defending the nation's borders (say to the average level of an individual NATO nation, excluding the US). We are squadering the lives and spirits of our best. Every penny we spend on war and the infrastructure of warmaking is money stolen from the from the ever-growing numbers of poor that could have provided jobs, that could have provided medical care, that could have provided food and all the necessities of life, with abundant money left over. Every penny spent is theft of capital that could have been spent on jobs and infrastructure, on a 100% conversion to non-fossil hydrocarbon and non-nuclear renewable energy. Our reliance on war as a first option of choice has turned this nation into the worst and most dangerous of rogue nations, has made the United States the epicenter of injustice in the world, from which radiates in all directions undending harms. This choice has led inexorably to a way of government that operates on a model of applied malignant sociopathy. We have become the most advanced police state the world has ever seen and are rapidly slipping into neofuedal totalitarianism. Every ideal this nation is supposed to hold dear has been repeatedly and profoundly betrayed. Our government institutions are corrupt, probably beyond any realistic hopes of salvage or rehabilitation, With the knowledge and acceptance of those who are running this freak show, it has all gone to weakening and destroying our Nation, not making it stronger or ensuring it's lasting existence and well-being. We are on the edge of the abyss, one or two steps away from becoming a failed state. If we do not change, we will not survive. If we do not change, it is probably better for us and the world that we not survive as a nation.
Gee, I wonder if the suicide rate has anything to do with multiple combat tours of duty! A lmany of our troops are on their 5th-7th tours of duty! Being a veteran myself, I can't even wrap my brain around miltple combat tours. I feel so sorry for the 1 % of the population doing the fighting while the other 99% of us go on our merry ways. Some country, and you know the government will never re-instate the draft because if they did the country would demand a draft of ALL 18 year old men and women with no educational deferments( physical & mental deferments only) and if that were to happen we would not be in this perpetual state of war that we now ENJOY!
bear in mind, during wwII, you signed up/were drafted "for the duration" of the conflict. had we actually needed to invade japan, it could have continued for years longer. men (mostly) went overseas, not to return home until the end, whenever that might be, or they got a "million dollar" wound. if they were killed, they got buried there. maybe this was actually easier on everyone, since all parties knew this going in.
Bring back the draft,but let's make a few changes. #1 change- Draft ALL 18 year old men & women who are phycically and mentally fit for duty. In other words everyone gets drafted, not just the kids who don't go on to higher education! When the wealthy and and elected officials start to see their kids getting drafted to fight in a real, honest to god shooting war ,I bet this nonsensical pre-emptive invasions would come to a screeching halt! When Ike (a republican) was POTUS he said, and I quote" Beware of the military-industrial complex" ,but, we didn't listen. Now every adult needs to pay attention to what Ike said more than 50 years ago and call their reps in DC and DEMAND a return to the draft and these bullshit wars will STOP! Better yet forget the draft, nlets do this - Nobody can go to college UNLESS they ARE honorably discharged miliary veterans.... Just a thought but it's worth thinking about.
I would no more serve in the military than I would any street gang.
I would not more recommend the military to anyone than I would suicide. A person can only take so much degradation and macho-murder-lifestyle before it effects him/her for life. Many cannot handle the callus mindset it instills in its soldiers.
Suicide is an easy death to fake, especially with users of recreational drugs. A declining economy, patterns of drug abuse in returning veterans, and life insurance, including military life, means that some people are "harvesting" family members for the bucks. I've seen the attempts made.
A second nasty phenomenon in the rural South is the use of mind games to induce suicide. My late great-uncle, disfigured facially but entirely sane and level-headed, had the long-term experience of dealing with in-laws and neighbors who would walk past him and whisper "suicide" in hopes that he would get the hint, his wife would get the insurance, and his neighbors would get the acreage at a cheap price. This pattern of behavior has been seen in Knoxville, Chattanooga, the Sequatchie Valley of Tennessee noted above, and the Tuscaloosa, AL area.
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