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Suicide Rates for U.S. Soldiers at Record HighPosted on May 7, 2009
As of the end of 2008, a US soldier was more likely to commit suicide than an American civilian. This trend is now under investigation by the U.S. Army, which must grapple with the extent of inadequate psychological support available to soldiers coming home.
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By felicity, May 8 at 11:51 am #
Soldiers are trained to have personality disorders - lean, mean killing machines. (Whether it has always been so, I don’t know.) But the military might question its training programs? Does a person ‘catch’ a personality disorder, like catching a cold, and then like a cold it goes away?
I remember, and they can still be seen, Nam vets wandering the streets of our major cities - unemployed and unemployable, derelicts mentally and emotionally lost. For many of those vets the ‘disorder’ never left.
Report thisBy fjamesc, May 8 at 10:16 am #
“Culture of Stigma Is a Key Cause of Military, Veteran Suicides”—http://tinyurl.com/StigmaMilitary—highlights countering stigma as an essential response to this tragedy. It challenges military leadership to go beyond merely issuing orders about stigma and, in addition, to actually change its policies and practices. The military could take a huge step forward, for instance, by reviewing recruitment, promotion, and retention practices that discriminate against people with common and treatable mental illnesses and by pro-actively instituting policies to avoid retaining or promoting officers and NCOs who have a record of intolerance or ignorance about the mental health needs of service members.
Franklin Cook, Editor and Publisher
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By Howie bledsoe, May 8 at 6:14 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Hey, the Iraqi suicide bombers actually have a HIGHER suicide rate than our soldiers.
Report thisBy Russian Paul, May 8 at 4:21 am #
Overprescribing of antidepressants probably has something to do with this too.
Report thisBy PSmith, May 7 at 6:40 pm #
DEAD MEN WALKING
US dead - 4,000
Iraq dead - 2.8 million - 1.4 m Iraq War, 1m by sanctions, 400k by GW1.
Seven hundred civilian dead for every dead service person. Mostly women, children and the elderly.
Not really cricket.
Suicide - PTSD, aka guilt for murder / guilt for association with murder.
Report thisBy skulz fontaine, May 7 at 5:25 pm #
How long can any warrior live with the stupidity of an illegal war? With the atrocity? With the war crimes those warriors are “ordered” to commit?
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