I have no joke here. No commentary. No rant. Only a desire to point you, dear readers, to this story. One that states that 22,000 soldiers and veterans who have served their country bravely and with honor in Iraq and Afghanistan, have called a specially created suicide hotline.
Draw whatever conclusions you like from there.
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No big surprise. In the Vietnam war the US lost almost 60,000 soldiers to enemy fire. Since the war ended more than 75,000 have taken their own lives.
I think waging unjust war takes it's toll far beyond what the politicians want you to know. The human mind has trouble coming to terms with killing innocent people and sees no way out but suicide.
that is very true but personally i find it harder to feel bad to today's soldiers that volunteered when the ones like in Vietnam and before basically didn't have that much chose. if you sign up you know the shit will be heavy, of course it is still sad.
Yeah, because, you know just wars like World War II and the Civil War didn't leave/expose psychological aftereffects.
Throwing out a number doesn't provide enough context.
Let's see here - We've got about 1,400,000 enlisted soldiers on active duty, give or take. 22,000 called a suicide hotline. This doesn't mean that that number was in imminent danger of suicide, as the hotline figures that they averted 1,200 suicides.
In the civilian population of approximate 300 million, more than 32,000 successfully commit suicide every year.
In other words, the military's suicide HOTLINE CALL rate is 1.5% or the same rate as civilian's suicide SUCCESS rate.
I post this not to diminish the importance of suicide prevention among the military, but to cut off any notions that somehow war or military service causes a person to be more susceptible to mental illness.
The fact is, it does not. The myth of the "justifiably crazy/depressed vet" gets played over and over in the media, but it just doesn't hold water in the real world. Most of us know servicepeople, and, though we should never forget that they are people, not superhumans, we also should be cautious about perpetrating unfair myths, even out of sincere compassion.
Again, I'm not downplaying the problem of suicide. I'm simply saying that, using the flawed arguments (and sound numbers) above, we should draw the opposite conclusion: that living safely in America, practicing, say, dentistry, causes more suicide than the experience of warfare does.
Don't Swayze Bro.
Thanks for the voice of reason!
Well said, Bro.
Well said bro.
I myself served 10 years in the Marine Corps. The fact that any veteran of any war has to resort to calling the suicide hotline is pretty bad itself. I myself am definitely not choosing the veterans over civilians when it comes to mental health issues, but it hits home.
I myself have been a victim of the VA in terms of long processing times, but have never shown signs of suicidal tendencies.
One point they are not bringing up, and probably will not show you is the way the government is wiping their hands of taking care of said veterans. Those that are coming home with PTSD, are getting little to no help at all. The government is stating that an individual suffering with this affliction had a pre-existing mental condition that worsened by going overseas.
Not only is that a slap in the face to our men and women in the military, but also the "doctors" they use in the enlistment process.
Just a little something to ponder as well...
Gary,
Thank you so much for weighing in on this. I purposely refrained from making any kind of comment -- and if you read my drivel, that's no easy task for me -- because I didn't know what to think. I read that piece in Time about soldiers being prescribed Prozac at alarming rates. It made me sad. Hearing stories of veterans not receiving proper medical care just makes me angry.
With the suicide hotline story, I just felt it was something that needed to be read.
Thank you Gary. Thank you for your service to this country.
Johnny Wright
For those interested, that Time article is:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1811858,00.html
22,000 sounds like a LOT....
..until you remember that there are 26,000,000 living veterans.
That's 1/10th of 1%!!! (Wonder what the percentage of suicides to the STANDARD POPULATION is???)
Now that 22,000 doesn't sound like such a big story, does it????
Thanks for your service Gary.
I'd just like to point out something that people tend to overlook. This is the first time in history that people are more comfortable about coming out with their mental health issues and knowing that these men and women are calling instead of committing is a good thing. Does anyone know the data about pre-hotline successful suicides in comparison?