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General => Archive => Political and Religious => Topic started by: Odysseus on June 14, 2012, 04:48:38 AM
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2156250/Suicides-U-S-troops-hit-DAY.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Shocking figures show one U.S. soldier commits suicide EVERY DAY
Suicides are surging among America's troops, averaging nearly one a day this year - the fastest pace in the nation's decade of war.
The 154 suicides for active-duty troops in the first 155 days of the year far outdistance the U.S. forces killed in action in Afghanistan - about 50 per cent more - according to Pentagon statistics obtained by The Associated Press.
The numbers reflect a military burdened with wartime demands from Iraq and Afghanistan that have taken a greater toll than foreseen a decade ago. The military also is struggling with increased sexual assaults, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and other misbehavior.
Because suicides had leveled off in 2010 and 2011, this year's upswing has caught some officials by surprise.
The reasons for the increase are not fully understood. Among explanations, studies have pointed to combat exposure, post-traumatic stress, misuse of prescription medications and personal financial problems.
Army data suggest soldiers with multiple combat tours are at greater risk of committing suicide, although a substantial proportion of Army suicides are committed by soldiers who never deployed.
The unpopular war in Afghanistan is winding down with the last combat troops scheduled to leave at the end of 2014. But this year has seen record numbers of soldiers being killed by Afghan troops, and there also have been several scandals involving U.S. troop misconduct.
The 2012 active-duty suicide total of 154 through June 3 compares to 130 in the same period last year, an 18 per cent increase. And it's more than the 136.2 suicides that the Pentagon had projected for this period based on the trend from 2001-2011.
This year's January-May total is up 25 percent from two years ago, and it is 16 per cent ahead of the pace for 2009, which ended with the highest yearly total thus far.
Suicide totals have exceeded U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan in earlier periods, including for the full years 2008 and 2009.
The suicide pattern varies over the course of a year, but in each of the past five years the trend through May was a reliable predictor for the full year, according to a chart based on figures provided by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner.
The numbers are rising among the 1.4 million active-duty military personnel despite years of effort to encourage troops to seek help with mental health problems. Many in the military believe that going for help is seen as a sign of weakness and thus a potential threat to advancement.
Kim Ruocco, widow of Marine Major John Ruocco, a helicopter pilot who hanged himself in 2005 between Iraq deployments, said he was unable to bring himself to go for help.
'He was so afraid of how people would view him once he went for help,' she said in an interview at her home in suburban Boston. 'He thought that people would think he was weak, that people would think he was just trying to get out of redeploying or trying to get out of service, or that he just couldn't hack it - when, in reality, he was sick. He had suffered injury in combat and he had also suffered from depression and let it go untreated for years. And because of that, he's dead today.'
Ruocco is currently director of suicide prevention programs for the military support organization Tragedy Assistance Programs, or TAPS.
more at the link...
Bloody hell.... I never realised the extent of the problem. Grim news indeed... :(
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Obviously the increase is alarming. My big question is what percentage of soldiers coming back from war commit suicide versus the percentage of the general population? While I suspect the soldiers numbers are higher, the numbers don't mean much without that context.
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Obviously the increase is alarming. My big question is what percentage of soldiers coming back from war commit suicide versus the percentage of the general population? While I suspect the soldiers numbers are higher, the numbers don't mean much without that context.
That's a valid point. From what I can tell the suicide rate among veterans normally tends to be a bit lower than the general population, but not by much. However, the current military suicide rate pretty much blows the doors off of the GP. Here's (https://articles.cnn.com/2008-09-09/health/army.suicides_1_suicide-rate-army-soldiers-female-veterans?_s=PM:HEALTH) an article with some stats from 2005. At that point the Army was just starting to catch up to the rest of the country. Obviously, it's well past that point now.
My concern isn't so much veterans offing themselves, although I'm somewhat sympathetic to their situation, but when they start to run amok a few years from now. Much like we saw Vietnam veterans working in the post offices going off in the mid seventies, we're going to see a lot of Iraq/Afghanistan veterans shooting places up in the next few years, and I think they're going to be a lot more proficient at it. Worse still is the fondness for giving them jobs as cops. Not only could the requirements not be any more different, but it's creating more issues that might crop up later. We're already starting to see cops treat traffic stops like Fallujah, and we're still very early in the militarization of LEO.
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Good thing our armed forces are "all volunteer" right?
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I know it's supposed to be sarcastic and all, but no one is forcing them in.
The rate of suicide is horrible though. These wars: destroying families overseas and at home. Not pro-life, not pro-humanity.
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Obviously the increase is alarming. My big question is what percentage of soldiers coming back from war commit suicide versus the percentage of the general population? While I suspect the soldiers numbers are higher, the numbers don't mean much without that context.
That's a valid point. From what I can tell the suicide rate among veterans normally tends to be a bit lower than the general population, but not by much. However, the current military suicide rate pretty much blows the doors off of the GP. Here's (https://articles.cnn.com/2008-09-09/health/army.suicides_1_suicide-rate-army-soldiers-female-veterans?_s=PM:HEALTH) an article with some stats from 2005. At that point the Army was just starting to catch up to the rest of the country. Obviously, it's well past that point now.
My concern isn't so much veterans offing themselves, although I'm somewhat sympathetic to their situation, but when they start to run amok a few years from now. Much like we saw Vietnam veterans working in the post offices going off in the mid seventies, we're going to see a lot of Iraq/Afghanistan veterans shooting places up in the next few years, and I think they're going to be a lot more proficient at it. Worse still is the fondness for giving them jobs as cops. Not only could the requirements not be any more different, but it's creating more issues that might crop up later. We're already starting to see cops treat traffic stops like Fallujah, and we're still very early in the militarization of LEO.
I've been waiting for the right time to post this. I saw this on my news feed about a week ago. I don't know what is scarier, the fact that I believe it really happened, or the fact that so many people like it... I actually sent it to every major paper and news station in CT hoping to get this kind of bullshit out to the public. Sadly, that didn't happen.
(https://img577.imageshack.us/img577/5253/1imagejpeg952.jpg)
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That is repulsive... 27 people liked that?
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That sounds fake. If you're doing 85 in a 25 zone and step out of the car with a knife in your hands ... you don't get ask for your registration.
rumborak
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By the way, do we have confirmation from other sources? Y'know, with this being the Daily Mail and all.
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That sounds fake. If you're doing 85 in a 25 zone and step out of the car with a knife in your hands ... you don't get ask for your registration.
rumborak
This is what I thnk he was trying to say.... 'I got pulled over doing 60 over the limit because I didn't know I had the cops behind me. When they made me get out of the car, I didn't realize I had my knife strapped to me. I'm a marine, a well as the police officer. We are both superbad ass and think racism is funny. Time to go get shitfaced for the second time today'
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It's too bad they didn't both crash and kill each other.
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Unfortunately, this statistic is legitimate. Just google it, you'll find it being reported all over the place.
A rather significant contributing factor to this has been the military's so-called "Stop Loss (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-loss_policy)" policy, which is what my green sarcasm post above was referring to.
Yeah, our military is all volunteer, but when you're about to be discharged and they extend your active duty to keep you in Afghanistan, some dudes just can't deal.
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Actually, it's getting out of the sandbox that tends to lead people to off themselves. That's why the suicide rates increase as draw-downs occur. That's not to say that repeated tours isn't a factor, but it does seem to be indirect.
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When you take into consideration the fact that soldiers are routinely ordered to kill civilians in a foreign country in the name of some misguided and erroneous sense of "freedom" or some some such absurdity, you can begin to understand why they are killing themselves in such high numbers. Turns out murdering civilians in cold blood can do much damage to one's own mental state.
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Couldn't agree more, Omega.
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I know four people who have gone to Afghanistan, the shortest time spent there being a total of 16 months. Two of them went into service as straight edge... all four of them are now raging alcoholics. I'm assuming that this is common among many soldiers who are coming home. You throw PTSD in the mix of being constantly drunk, disaster is inevitable.
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Afghanistan turned my son into a RAGEaholic.
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Actually, it's getting out of the sandbox that tends to lead people to off themselves. That's why the suicide rates increase as draw-downs occur. That's not to say that repeated tours isn't a factor, but it does seem to be indirect.
I imagine going from the highly structured of military life to the completely unstructured clusterfuck of a society we live in, doesn't help.
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Actually, it's getting out of the sandbox that tends to lead people to off themselves. That's why the suicide rates increase as draw-downs occur. That's not to say that repeated tours isn't a factor, but it does seem to be indirect.
I imagine going from the highly structured of military life to the completely unstructured clusterfuck of a society we live in, doesn't help.
That certainly seems to be the case. There's also the enormous support network you have when you're active. A guy in the sandbox has 50k guys watching his back. Out here it's every man for himself. I can definitely see how that, combined with the aforementioned clusterfuck, could really screw somebody up pretty badly. Compound that with some good, old fashioned shell-shock, and you got a real mess on your hands.
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Makes me wonder what's more toxic for humans: military life, or our current dissociative society. I could see the argument being made for both.
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When you take into consideration the fact that soldiers are routinely ordered to kill civilians in a foreign country in the name of some misguided and erroneous sense of "freedom" or some some such absurdity, you can begin to understand why they are killing themselves in such high numbers. Turns out murdering civilians in cold blood can do much damage to one's own mental state.
Gotta agree with that.
I imagine going from the highly structured of military life to the completely unstructured clusterfuck of a society we live in, doesn't help.
Bloody good point, sir.
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I imagine going from the highly structured of military life to the completely unstructured clusterfuck of a society we live in, doesn't help.
Bloody good point, sir.
Oddly enough people have said the same thing about the American football players who have developed deep depressions and killed themselves. I can complete see how one would get used to being told where to go and when to be there and what to do all the time and struggle with having to make your own choices all the time.
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I've had a similar thing happen to that cop story, just not that extreme. We were on a highway, and my older brother was driving. He got pulled over for speeding. He was probably doing 10-15 over. The cop let him off with a warning presumably after seeing his military ID.
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It's actually pretty hard to distinguish between honest to goodness corruption, like the above facebook tale, and cops just being lazy. I've got a great deal of experience with cops and speeding, including an instance of doing around 85 in a 25 zone probably 20 years ago. That cop was on foot, writing another ticket, and I think he just appreciated that I actually stopped when he pointed menacingly at me as I flew by him. He said that he was writing a little old lady for doing 35, and that he was going to give me the benefit of the doubt and cite me for 30/25. Damned friendly, I thought.
My experience has always been that if they're real cops looking for real crimes, they probably won't write you. They'd rather be out doing cop stuff than waiting in court to testify against one speeder. They let me go the majority of the time. If they're purposely running radar traps, or they're small town cops, they'll write you 100% of the time; discretion does not apply. Anything outside of those realms is going to come down to whether or not the cop likes you or wants to fuck with you. That would be considered corruption in my book. In the facebook story I don't think many cops under any circumstances would let somebody slide completely for that sort of speeding.
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Ya, going 10-15 over the limit usually just results in a "warning." They pull you over, hoping that maybe you'll be drunk, they'll smell some weed, you'll have a warrant, etc. It's usually nothing more than an excuse to pull you over.
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Actually, it's getting out of the sandbox that tends to lead people to off themselves. That's why the suicide rates increase as draw-downs occur. That's not to say that repeated tours isn't a factor, but it does seem to be indirect.
I imagine going from the highly structured of military life to the completely unstructured clusterfuck of a society we live in, doesn't help.
That certainly seems to be the case. There's also the enormous support network you have when you're active. A guy in the sandbox has 50k guys watching his back. Out here it's every man for himself. I can definitely see how that, combined with the aforementioned clusterfuck, could really screw somebody up pretty badly. Compound that with some good, old fashioned shell-shock, and you got a real mess on your hands.
Society has its share of problem's but you both have the clusterfuck in reverse. Regardless of how "structured" active military duty may be, modern society barely scratches the surface of how psychologically damaging it is to be in a foreign environment where people are trying to kill or maim you as they protect themselves from your aggressive and murderous assault on their homeland.
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Actually, it's getting out of the sandbox that tends to lead people to off themselves. That's why the suicide rates increase as draw-downs occur. That's not to say that repeated tours isn't a factor, but it does seem to be indirect.
I imagine going from the highly structured of military life to the completely unstructured clusterfuck of a society we live in, doesn't help.
That certainly seems to be the case. There's also the enormous support network you have when you're active. A guy in the sandbox has 50k guys watching his back. Out here it's every man for himself. I can definitely see how that, combined with the aforementioned clusterfuck, could really screw somebody up pretty badly. Compound that with some good, old fashioned shell-shock, and you got a real mess on your hands.
Society has its share of problem's but you both have the clusterfuck in reverse. Regardless of how "structured" active military duty may be, modern society barely scratches the surface of how psychologically damaging it is to be in a foreign environment where people are trying to kill or maim you as they protect themselves from your aggressive and murderous assault on their homeland.
I don't think either of us would disagree with that. The topic is military folk offing themselves, and the fact that it seems to happen more when their tours are coming to an end or when they return home rather than while they're in country. Regardless of how fucked up getting shot at by Afghans might be, you can't deny that leaving 18 months of that and returning to here would be an enormous shock to the system.
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Ya, I don't see how they're really exclusive thoughts. But you'd have a hard time explaining why military service people have killed themselves who never served in a war zone if you only looked at the problem through the horrors of actual military combat.
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US soldiers kill way more than one person per day so I consider this a nice first step toward justice.
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Well all unnecessary killing is bad, so...
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If the gov't actually cared about its military they'd have them go to a mandatory psychological evaluation, after returning home. I'm amazed families havent considered doing this, I hope their are some that do though.
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It could be those families can't afford it. I don't know how much the G.I. bill is worth so idk. But therapy is expensive, especially over the long term, and that's not including the medications that might be necessary.
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US soldiers kill way more than one person per day so I consider this a nice first step toward justice.
There are so many things wrong with this statement I don't even know where to begin.
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It could be those families can't afford it. I don't know how much the G.I. bill is worth so idk. But therapy is expensive, especially over the long term, and that's not including the medications that might be necessary.
Yeah, as I recall, counseling and therapy are the first things to get whacked come budget time. Just too expensive and not deemed as important as, say, removing shrapnel and sewing limbs back on.
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US soldiers kill way more than one person per day so I consider this a nice first step toward justice.
You are a bad person.
EDIT: I realize this was harsh. I thought about changing it to something else but I don't think I'm going to.
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US soldiers kill way more than one person per day so I consider this a nice first step toward justice.
Not even sure what to say.
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US soldiers kill way more than one person per day so I consider this a nice first step toward justice.
Not even sure what to say.
Eh, since this is an all volunteer army I'm no too terribly troubled by his remark. Although, I'd certainly prefer to see the responsibility dumped on the assholes that got them into the war.
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A volunteer army whose volunteers usually don't really have anywhere else to go.
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Desperation does not justify murder, nor does ignorance.
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I'm not saying that I like war or the military either, but some of these guys enlist in the army because they have no future: no college prospects, no job, no way out sorta thing. I'm not justifying their actions in the army, just their joining the army in the first place.
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Yeah and a lot of suicide bombers grew up in much worse environments and became "terrorists" out of desperation, but that doesn't justify their actions nor does it clear them of guilt.
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Desperation does not justify murder, nor does ignorance.
But to suggest that it's a good thing that a group of people who lead incredibly difficult lives and who are willing to sacrifice themselves for your safety (assuming, of course, that you live in the US, which is the impression I've gotten from your posts) is committing suicide more is just awful. It's gross; it is by far the worst sentence I've read on DTF. You are a bad person.
It's one thing to suggest that war is immoral and that we shouldn't have an army. A lot of people are of that mind. But this leaves a really awful taste in my mouth.
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Desperation does not justify murder, nor does ignorance.
Even if I agreed that them dying is 'justice', you're assuming that every soldier who commits suicide has actually committed murder or some equally terrible action, which is silly.
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Desperation does not justify murder, nor does ignorance.
But to suggest that it's a good thing that a group of people who lead incredibly difficult lives and who are willing to sacrifice themselves for your safety
That's where you are mistaken. The vast majority of soldiers (excluding the Coast Guard and National Guard) are not sacrificing themselves for my safety, but rather for the imperialistic ambitions of a corrupt and evil nation. The Nuremberg trials established that "everyone is responsible for his own actions."
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The Nuremberg trials established that "everyone is responsible for his own actions."
And they also said that anyone accused of a War crime has right to a fair trial based on facts and law. Not sure you go from this to saying that psychological problems and eventual suicide of the accused is justice.
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US soldiers kill way more than one person per day so I consider this a nice first step toward justice.
Hey man, I'm proud we're on a forum where we're free to express our opinions, but this is just tasteless and crass.
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The Nuremberg trials established that "everyone is responsible for his own actions."
And they also said that anyone accused of a War crime has right to a fair trial based on facts and law. Not sure you go from this to saying that psychological problems and eventual suicide of the accused is justice.
No, justice--proportional justice--would be if U.S. soldiers were dragged around the world to various secret military prisons and given no fair trial whatsoever before they were executed by a military tribunal or, in the event that they were discovered to be innocent, dropped off in the middle of the night on a highway in Eastern Europe with the clothes on their back, no money and no ride home. This is just something I don't exactly shed a tear about.
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That's one of the most heartless things I've ever heard.
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Yeah well then tell U.S. soldiers to stop doing it to people.
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I have to agree with Oghar here, the US has spend trillions of dollars on fighting nonsense obviously imperialistic wars in the last 20 (30? 40?) years, killing thousands of civilians in the process.
Of course it's not good news but do you really feel it's appropriate to pay much attention or shock to the news that US soldiers commit suicide more often than the average population?
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No, justice--proportional justice--would be if U.S. soldiers were dragged around the world to various secret military prisons and given no fair trial whatsoever before they were executed by a military tribunal or, in the event that they were discovered to be innocent, dropped off in the middle of the night on a highway in Eastern Europe with the clothes on their back, no money and no ride home. This is just something I don't exactly shed a tear about.
This is a much more reasonable stance than saying they should all kill themselves.
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The Nuremberg trials established that "everyone is responsible for his own actions."
And they also said that anyone accused of a War crime has right to a fair trial based on facts and law. Not sure you go from this to saying that psychological problems and eventual suicide of the accused is justice.
No, justice--proportional justice--would be if U.S. soldiers were dragged around the world to various secret military prisons and given no fair trial whatsoever before they were executed by a military tribunal or, in the event that they were discovered to be innocent, dropped off in the middle of the night on a highway in Eastern Europe with the clothes on their back, no money and no ride home. This is just something I don't exactly shed a tear about.
So, your view of justice is an eye for an eye then?
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No, justice--proportional justice--would be if U.S. soldiers were dragged around the world to various secret military prisons and given no fair trial whatsoever before they were executed by a military tribunal or, in the event that they were discovered to be innocent, dropped off in the middle of the night on a highway in Eastern Europe with the clothes on their back, no money and no ride home. This is just something I don't exactly shed a tear about.
This is a much more reasonable stance than saying they should all kill themselves.
Not by much. Especially when we're considering people who are found to be innocent.
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Nah, innocence wouldn't really be applicable to either side. When we round somebody up, they're guilty by association. If you're around to be caught, then you're an enemy combatant*. From their perspective of the US military, the same rule would apply, but actually have some legitimacy. Every single military person over there would be an enemy combatant. I don't share Ohgar's belief that it's cool when soldiers off themselves, or constitutes some karmic justice, as I don't see any direct correlation between service and committing atrocities. I certainly do see his point of view that they shouldn't be held less accountable than those they're fighting, though.
*I believe the current ROE regarding drone strikes is that any male of adult age is considered a combatant and fair game. The only civilian casualties that count when something get's Mavericked is females and children.
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US soldiers kill way more than one person per day so I consider this a nice first step toward justice.
Hey man, I'm proud we're on a forum where we're free to express our opinions, but this is just tasteless and crass.
This. If you want to argue against the goals or tactics of the U.S. military, have at it. But celebrating the death anyone and essentially coming out in favor of more of the same is not cool and not something I am going to allow here.
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Just saw a program about this on CNN, they said most of the suicides have never seen combat. So yes, cheering their suicide does make you a monster.
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Just saw a program about this on CNN, they said most of the suicides have never seen combat. So yes, cheering their suicide does make you a monster.
To be fair, I'm not sure that makes them any less culpable. The support roles are just as important to a combat operation as the combat roles. A mechanic or a cook bears just as much responsibility for the overall picture of what's happening.
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Seriously? A cook?
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Absolutely. You think the guys fighting would be half as good at what they did if they had to eat MRE's 3 per day for 9 months? They'd still do it, but the cooks make them better at what they do.
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It just seems extreme to me. I wouldn't even assign that sorta blame to the guy who cooked mess hall meals for Nazis, and I hate Nazis (as any non-sociopathic person should).
Edit: Actually probably not a great comparison, because some such cooks saved people like my grandfather from starvation.
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And undoubtedly there are American cooks (and other roles) who are similarly sympathetic. Again, I'm just saying that they're all a part of a bigger machine and as such bare some responsibility.
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So they should kill themselves?
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So they should kill themselves?
I'd call that a personal decision between them and their conscience.
Ohgar's the one who suggested they should. Not me. I've only refuted some bogus remarks by people assailing his position, as I so often do. If you're asking for my thoughts on what Ohgar said, I've already made them, but I'll sum them up again. I don't think it's right to suggest that service members should off themselves to make up for what they, collectively, have done. There are assuredly some real bastards out there, but for the most part I consider them more misguided than rotten. Where I did agree with Ohgar is that it wouldn't break my heart any if they get treated exactly the same way they treat their enemies.
No, justice--proportional justice--would be if U.S. soldiers were dragged around the world to various secret military prisons and given no fair trial whatsoever before they were executed by a military tribunal or, in the event that they were discovered to be innocent, dropped off in the middle of the night on a highway in Eastern Europe with the clothes on their back, no money and no ride home. This is just something I don't exactly shed a tear about.
This is a much more reasonable stance than saying they should all kill themselves.
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But that's just the point; the servicemen who didn't see combat didn't really treat their enemies any way, because they never went hand-to-hand with anyone in their service. I hardly think the cook did.
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Aside from the fact that I still maintain that support personnel are equally culpable, what about bin Laden's driver? How about the guys who couriered thumb drives for him? The guy manning the tandoor in some Tora Bora cave? I assure you that plenty of people have been blown up, or rendered and tortured for doing nothing more than cooking naan for bad people.
It's like the guys installing the toilets in the Death Star. They knew what they were getting into when they took the job, and because they're helping to operate the machine, they take their chances the same way.
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I feel a Clerks viewing coming on.