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Army Suicide Rate Highest in DecadesPosted on Jan 30, 2009
Adding to the solemn string of record-breaking statistics, new figures show that the suicide rate among U.S. Army members has hit its highest level in three decades. Last year, over 128 soldiers took their own lives, a telling sign of our military and political climate.
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By dihey, February 1 at 7:24 pm #
Mr. President how many US soldiers are there today in Iraq? I plan to ask you this question at the beginning of every month because Iraq must not disappear from our view. Truthdig for one seems to have lost interest in Iraq thereby indirectly admitting that President Bush’s war there was a success.
Report thisBy Anna Catherine, February 1 at 12:45 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Our military does not have a clear definition of what is expected of them. The game and the rules often change. One single thing stands out as a tragic mistake, that is multiple deployments. Once a soldier comes home, going back is too much to ask. There’s just so much “adjusting” a person can do. Throwing pills at the problem makes it worse. Sometimes depression can be quite normal. Given their reasons they shouldn’t be treated. Sometimes it’s good medicine to eliminate the cause of the problem. Our military deserves better. We have a moral obligation to them.
Report thisBy Russian Paul, January 31 at 11:16 pm #
This wouldn’t have anything to do with the over-prescribing of certain anti-depressant medications would it?
Report thisBy PSmith, January 31 at 2:12 am #
LED ASTRAY
One feels very very sorry for the misguided men and women who bought the Neocon lies, joined the army, navy or airforce, committed war crimes and then discovered the truth spoken by the CWO Wright, below.
The two or three percent - those ‘who like it’ - the psychopaths - can evoke no sympathy or compassion. They are not the ones committing suicide. They are also the ones who send the others to war.
The training is designed to ensure that as many as possible of the other 97% will pull the trigger first and feel the results later.
It is the best of the 97%, or the weakest and least ruthless, who cannot live with themselves and take the honourable course.
CWO Wright - Waterboarding is Torture… Period -
“It comes down to this, Mr Evans, either you are a man who condones torture, or you are not. There is no middle ground, no gray area to hide in. And since you do seem to condone torture, at least in the case of ‘these animals,’ just how far would you go? You said you were thinking about service in the Guard, as someone who has seen the worst of the human condition and the field of battle, I’d advise against it - because someday you may find yourself a jailer, with absolute power over a man you utterly hate and despise, a man you don’t see as human, and then, Mr Evans, without firm conviction and a full understanding of what Honor truly means you may learn something about yourself, about brutality, about evil, that you’d have been better off not knowing. And then it will be far too late.”
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/10/waterboarding-is-torture-perio/
1.4M INNOCENTS
One can feel sympathy and compassion for those who have committed such evil that they feel compelled to commit suicide.
But shouldn’t one FIRST feel sympathy and compassion for those innocents who were their victims? Do we not first feel compassion for those slaughtered in the Nazi death camps, rather than for their killers?
Compassion for those civilians who were ruthlessly executed. For those who were abducted, inhumanely tortured and then murdered? For those who were victims of a deliberate ‘El-Salvador Option’ threatened, and implemented. For the men, women and children whose deaths were ignored because ‘we don’t do body-counts.’
But the world DOES do body counts and by that noble action the dead point their accusing fingers now at their murderers.
Report thisBy skulz fontaine, January 30 at 6:32 pm #
Illegal wars of naked aggression will do that to a soul. A .45 caliber aspirin will surely cure that nagging headache but it does seem austere. Now there a “legacy” that both Bush and Rummy can relish all the way to their war crimes tribunals. Say speaking of war crimes tribunals, what’s taking so freaking long?
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