I’d sure be curious to hear from veteran FReepers about what might be causing these tragedies and what might be done to prevent them.
I’m not sure the rest of us are qualified to speculate since we can’t know what it’s like to have been in combat.
here is my take.
First the poeple joining are good people but some are not suited and should nto be in the military,
PC is killing the military.
Also rapes on men , there has bene a huge jumpon men last year which coincides with letting homosexuals , cross dressers serve openly., 19,000 reported rapes on men in one year and th eleft will say that is just a coincidence, B/S
I know a neighbors kid joined, , why? Bec ause he wanted the benefits, nothing to do with the country he admitted.
There in lies the problem, people today , well many of them join because they want their benefits, free school etc.
I had nightmares, still do sometimes, went through a rough patch but my wife and I got through it.
What we have today is not the world war two guy, the manly guy, no sir what we have is many yong men joining for freebies, and the tests ot get in are pathetic.
Marines now is two pulls ups
women is one pull up
That is it, to graduate is 3 pulls for men and two for women, the running tests is done in sneakers.
Perfect examples, Manning who gave secrets away because he was a homosexual and did to like the law back then.
Hasan , who killed for allah at FT Hood
There should be a better screening for mental and physical, get rid of PC, stop promoting officers based on if they;re black or homosexual or hispanic.
“I’m not sure the rest of us are qualified to speculate since we can’t know what it’s like to have been in combat.”
I know it is very individual and can get odd. As a young man my father saw action in WWII. His unit ultimately suffered a 90% attrition rate in Europe. As a mature man he volunteered for Vietnam. When he returned stateside he had a lot of nightmares - of WWII. I always found that sad and chilling.
Stop repeat deployments ,for one thing.
Even some NG units are seeing 2 and 3 tours in a row.
Couldn't tell you. I remember being VERY stressed in Iraq after a few months when we were always so ready to kill bad guys and they never, ever showed their faces. IEDs were somewhat common, but even that was rare. The stress was mostly self-inflicted, to be honest. I was trying to will something to happen, but that wasn't going to work. Once I accepted that, the deployment got much easier.
Some of these guys have experienced some pretty bad stuff, but then they're immediately told to relax and not do anything to anyone (lest someone take out his aggression on the nearby village with numerous unknown enemy). It may be the right thing to say, morally, but that crap is typically the last thing you want to hear after your buddy just got splattered all over the road.
I wonder if it could have anything to do with risking one’s life while thinking he was fighting for something, then coming home to a broken, divided America that has become a welfare state? Crappy economy, no job to come home to, people bickering about free stuff, the Constitution you thought you were defending in shreds. What WERE you fighting for that whole time?? Not to mention that this whole generation of millenials is kinda shaky to begin with.
The reports are on the money. I'm surprised it took this long for the MSM to pick up this story.
The USAF shut down in January because the suicide rate had exceeded the entire previous year.
A lot of the suicides are troops who were never deployed. The usual cases heard about is wife cheats/hubby kills himself. These are some examples. NCO in Korea got local GF pregnant, did not want to face wife back home so he hung himself. NCO in Korea did not want to leave local GF so took bath with iron or radio. NCO caught stealing, facing 20+ years in Leavenworth ate a bullet.
There is also a spike in DOD civilian suicides. Most DOD civilians volunteer to go into the sandbox so I don't think deploying is the issue.
I had two back to back tours in Iraq and am now 100% disabled from PTSD and nerve injuries to my back which requires leg braces to walk. I have to confess that the thought of suicide did cross my mind as a release from horrible memories and the pain of physical disabilities. Being exposed to the blood and guts of combat was bad enough but I still have nightmares at the sight of a woman holding her baby, both shot in the head with the infant having a pacifier in his mouth. This was in one of the mass graves South of Baghdad where tens of thousands of people were massacred. The two factors that kept me from taking my life was the love of my family and my belief in God.
We have failed our war- weary brothers and sisters in arms. Once you are in the military, you do not feel like you fit in anywhere, it’s like another world. Something as simple as zero structure in civilian life to bearing witness to your fallen brothers and sisters to being unable to save them. I know I have failed them. I now pledge to find a way to be proactive.