Posted on 09/25/2019 2:13:58 AM PDT by robowombat
Navy Grappling with Effects of USS George H. W. Bush Suicides
By: Ben Werner September 24, 2019 7:22 PM
Sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) sing the Navy Hymn during a memorial service for Machinist’s Mate 3rd Class Robert “Bobby” John Bartulewicz III on July 14, 2019. US Navy Photo
Navy and local agencies are investigating the circumstances surrounding last week’s suicides of three sailors assigned to USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77). Meanwhile, the service has also increased counseling and support for the ship’s crew, Navy officials told USNI News on Tuesday.
The three sailors served in different departments and, as of now, “there does not appear to be a connection between their deaths,” service spokesperson Cmdr. Jennifer Cragg said in a statement. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and authorities in Portsmouth and Norfolk, Va., are leading a series of investigations into the suicides.
“The leadership of USS George H. W. Bush are engaged with their crew and focused on taking care of their sailors and their families,” Cragg said.
The three deaths were third, fourth and fifth suicides committed by Bush crewmembers in the past two years, according to a message from Capt. Sean Bailey, commanding officer of Bush, posted to the carrier’s Facebook Monday afternoon.
Bush entered in dry dock in February as part of a 28-month maintenance availability. Such work often brings new stressors to a crew that’s grown accustomed to a particular work rhythm. Usually, when a ship is in the yard for an extended period, crew members are assigned jobs unrelated to what they trained for or joined the Navy to perform.
While sending additional counselors and support staff to help the crew is a significant response, the entire Department of Defense must focus on enhancing the emotional intelligence of leaders, Ken Falke, a retired master chief and chairman of the EOD Warrior Foundation, told USNI News on Tuesday.
Falke, who wrote an article for Proceedings about addressing suicide in the military, said the most common causes of suicide involve depression, substance abuse and undiagnosed brain injuries. Commands can do a lot to treat depression and substance abuse if the leadership understands the signs, he said.
“There is no emotional intelligence training in our leadership continuum in the military,” Falke said. “So until we increase the level of emotional intelligence for first-rate supervisors, whether they’re at the (lead petty officer) LPO or (chief petty officer) CPO level, junior officers, senior officers, we are going to continue to fight these battles.”
The challenge for the crew is remaining focused on their mission. The challenge for leaders is finding ways to ensure the crew understands why the work they’re doing is vital for the mission, Falke said.
At the same time, leaders need to understand and be empathetic to the needs of their crew, Falke said. While at sea, crew members can focus on the mission and needs of their team because the ship’s operations rely on them. In dry dock, it’s harder to remain focused when other stressors exist. However, leaders can understand their crew’s needs and demonstrate to everyone that keeping the ship’s maintenance on schedule is a team effort. Bush’s location at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va., can also make for a stressful existence for sailors.
“The opposite of suicide is teaching people how to live a good life,” Falke said. “Can you live a good life in dry dock? Yes.”
Any new technology being used that could hurt susceptible minds, like 5G?
Now imagine this happened aboard the USS Essex in 1944 in your grandfather’s Navy. What would they do?
Go kill Japs, duh!
Don’t know about the Navy, but a friend’s father who was in the Bocage fighting and at St. Lo, once talking about service related suicides said that in his company a Sgt, a Tech something and a Lieut, deliberately walked into enemy fire to have an honorable way out of the pressure of intense combat. All got the Purple Heart and the Lt. got a posthumous Bronze Star with V device. I suspect many suicides in the forces were reported as something else to avoid a lot of investigatory paperwork and to shield families.
Suicide is hard for people to accept. In my last job there was a case at Redstone Arsenal where a young soldier drove to a remote area and shot himself to death with a personal firearm. No note but clear self inflicted injury. His family would not accept that verdict and wrote everyone and his dog in the Army and OSD claiming the soldiers death was ‘highly suspicious’ and demanded an investigation. They even hired two lawyers, one in DC and one in Huntsville, to keep things stirred up. AMC actually did a full investigation then got the OSI people to do one (AMC paid the tab) so there was no taint of organizational favoritism. Red Stone also did a really through dive into the guy’s life. End of it all was , ‘Yes it was a self inflicted death and no one could come up with a reason. The man did not seem depressed and there were no money or woman troubles. The family never did accept the verdict. So I would guess many military suicides have been assigned some other cause.
To me, this seems pretty commonsensical. Tracking head injuries shouldn't be too difficult in an environment with its own medical system, for example. Training supervisors to recognize signs of depression and substance abuse wouldn't be all that difficult.
Any correlation with ridalin or other mind-altering drugs given to them as children???
People in the military tend to not want to reveal medical issues because the military culture is so about physical fitness and strength. A medical issue shows weakness.
The military culture of hiding weakness really jumped out at me last week when I attended a retirement class last week. More than one speaker discussed VA benefits, for which we need extensive medical documentation. One even told us that we should not feel we are defrauding the government by getting VA benefits; it is an entitlement that we earned through our service.
As for training supervisors to recognize signs of depression or substance abuse, everyone in the military receives annual training on these subjects. I've learned more about illicit drugs since I joined the service.
Don’t know the back ground on these but I think “some” of these suicides are the results of the Obama years social engineering BS and has brought nothing but problems to the armed services.
Sexual assaults (men & women) have sky rocketed as a result. A lot of these people don’t belong in the military and have caused a lot of problems.
The other side is 18+ years of the war on terror. It’s taken a heavy toll on those who have deployed. The VA is worthless for the most part but that’s another story.
The shipyard environment sucks for everyone, in this case the nukes even more so. But there is no clear connection between the people involved. My sense is a toxic command climate. I know that sounds new agey/touchy feely but the Navy has done some poor work in chiding leadership personnel in the past. Also, there is a lot of money involved in reenlistment incentives and bonuses as well as security clearances. The Navy hasn’t been shy about trying to recover those funds or stripping clearances if one self identifies as depressed or suicidal. So most keep it to themselves until they can’t.
Couple that with single parent homes, smaller families, spoiled kids (related), political correctness (esp. in the Navy) and moral confusion, singlwe persons, lack of purpose and character, the rise of additive video games, and it is no wonder the devil has an easier time seducing souls to murder themselves.
| 1948 | 1950 | 1955 | 1960 | 1965 | 1970 | 1975 | 1980 | 1985 | 1990 | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Protestant | 69% | 66% | 70% | 67% | 69% | 65% | 60% | 61% | 57% | 56% | 56% | 52% | 49% | 45% | 38% | 38% |
| Catholic | 22% | 25% | 22% | 25% | 24% | 26% | 27% | 28% | 28% | 25% | 27% | 25% | 23% | 21% | 23% | 21% |
| Non-denominational Christian | 5% | 7% | 8% | 9% | 9% | |||||||||||
| The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints | 2% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | ||||||||
| Jewish | 4% | 4% | 4% | 3% | 3% | 3% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% |
| Other religions | 0% | 3% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 4% | 2% | 3% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 4% | 6% | 5% |
| None | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 3% | 6% | 7% | 8% | 9% | 6% | 8% | 10% | 14% | 17% | 20% | |
| Undesignated | 3% | 2% | 1% | 1% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 0% | 1% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 4% | 4% | 4% |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_religion_in_the_United_States
in 1964, 93 percent of children born in the United States were born to married parents. But in 2010, only 59 percent of children were born to married couples. https://online.aurora.edu/single-parent-households/
Single-person households are now the second most common type of households at 28 percent, -https://www.amrock.com/number-of-single-person-households-on-the-rise/
Majority of Youths Found to Lack a Direction in Life http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/06/11/41purpose_ep.h27.html
Thank you, that’s interesting information. I was assuming that hiding a significant head injury would be difficult in the environment of a ship. Maybe that’s wrong.
Navy medicine sucks. Sure if you’re bleeding they can stitch you up, anything beyond that, quackery. Aspirin and get back to work.
Besides, now with fags, lesbians, and transgendered, I’d bet sick call is full of them.
Slow morning in your part of the world?
I would like to know the age of each suicide.
Suicides under 25 years of age tend to be impulsive, and often follow a highly emotional event.
Suicides by healthy adults over age 25 are often carefully planned and usually fall into three categories - drug or alcohol addiction, schizophrenia or clinical depression, or a family history of suicide.
There's another thread making the rounds about homosexuals and suicides; blaming religion.
What's the connection in this thread; BUSH??
What is NOT mentioned here?
The chart is misleading.
It plots the total suicides against certain groups.
It does NOT state what the rate is AMONG the group by it’s self.
Were any of the sailors on ADHD meds at some point?
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