A recent Army health report draws an alarming profile of a fighting force more prone to inexcusable violence amid an “epidemic” of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the mental breakdown attracting speculation as a factor in a massacre of Afghan civilians this month.
Based on an exhaustive study of nearly 500,000 soldiers, reservists and veterans, the report finds that troops are more likely to commit suicide and violent sex offenses, and notes that as many as 236,000 suffered from PTSD since the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
For military analysts, the reason is the nightmarish experience of sustained combat: Soldiers have been fighting the longest war in U.S. history, with frequent stressful deployments and compressed rest time back home.
Continued - Troops stressed to breaking point: Report cites sustained combat, redeployments
Not only is the duration without adequate downtime an issue, the soldiers are also dealing with perilous RoE, and a divisive CiC.
It’s more than that, though. Add to it the weight of trying to aid some of the most godawful people on the face of the planet.
Here’s another war story for you:
My Company responded to a large deep-buried IED only a few blocks east of our position while in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad (just south of the Green Zone). A Humvee patrol had been rolling through and was blown up. It was real bad. Dense residential area, 2-3 completely trashed Humvees, one of those burned to practically nothing.
I moved my PLT in on foot from about a block away. I smelled barbecued chicken in the air, I swear to God. I almost remarked on how it was making me hungry, when I suddenly realized what I was smelling—flash-cooked Soldiers. Another Platoon from the Humvee unit was working to dig out the bodies from the burned-up wreck. The bodies were completely charred, but still recognizably human, somehow. Soldiers in the other badly-damaged Humvees had lost limbs in the attack.
While they had that duty, my commander had us canvas the area to see if anyone knew anything. Of course nobody saw/knew/heard anything.
The thing about this IED is that it was “deep-buried” and estimated to be about 100 pounds of home-made explosives. So, some hajis managed to dig a 5-6 foot deep hole, drop 100 pounds of explosives into it, and fill it back in without ANYONE in this dense collection of homes seeing anything? Right.
That’s not even the outrageous part. The haji whose house was right in front of the blast crater had the gall to demand some money to replace the windows that were blown out by the explosion. To this day, I’m glad I wasn’t the one who talked to that POS, or I’d likely be on trial for killing an unarmed man.
These people are not worth it, yet we keep giving it our all.
I think more than anything else, the multiple tours are the most negative factor. Crappy ROE is probably a close second.
Good article, jaz, and, oh, so timely. Add in the TBI’s (traumatic brain injury) that many of our troops have received with IED’s being the weapon of choice, and the situation gets even worse.......
..................and obama is cutting TriCare?
The article goes on and talks about the distrust between Afghan civilians and US troops. This was news to me:
...........”Mr. Bordin also uncovered deep distrust of Afghan civilians. American soldiers, he wrote, “were repulsed by the abuse and neglect they observed in how children are treated in Afghan society. U.S. soldiers largely reported that they did not care for Afghan civilians due to these factors as well as their suspected sympathies for the insurgents.””.................
Great report, thanks for posting that.