Posted on 08/06/2025 8:46:44 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Sixteen IDF soldiers have committed suicide in 2025, Brig. Gen. Amir Vadmani of the IDF Personnel Directorate presented to the subcommittee for human resources in the IDF on Tuesday.
Additionally, 21 soldiers committed suicide in 2024, 17 in 2023, and 14 in 2022.
The committee, chaired by MK Elazar Stern, convened to discuss efforts within the IDF to prevent suicides among soldiers.
"What drew attention is the unusual number of suicides recently,” Stern said. “We've addressed this before, but it has become more urgent after soldiers returned from fighting in Gaza.”
The committee met with various family members of soldiers who took their own lives, and outlined their two main goals.
“The first is how to reduce this phenomenon,” Stern explained
The second goal, he continued, was how the defense system could best comfort the families of the soldiers, potentially with partial or full recognition of the deceased as a fallen soldier.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
War is hell.
Stop giving them psych drugs. That’s your cause. Same thing with the US Vets.
I have what could be a very ‘out there’ theory, but I believe soldiers in dangerous theaters need more frequent (safe) down time, in a similar way to how they require pilots and even truck drivers to have a certain amount of rest in a 24 or 48 hour period, by law. Although for the later, it’s more about sleep and neurochemistry, my theory is that the genesis of PTSD is about intense stress and neurochemistry. You simply can’t have such an intense combination of both acute and chronic stress. The brain needs a recovery or it will get ‘hard-wired’ for fight/flight/freeze modality
Not letting them do what they need to do causes suicides. Saw it in Vietnam.
it’s gotta be something like that- unless it’s the fact that more and more unstable beta males and unstable women are signing up? In the us- they’ve lowered the threshold for recruitment severely- so that likely is why it happens more often now?
that coudl be too- too much intensity with too little break might trigger soemthing eventually-
Morale boosters need planned before you even go into battle IMHO:
1.). Many are reservists, you need to have a solid plan on how to deal with all the issues of tearing them out of civilian life for extended times. Some soldiers have lost income, there might be a daycare needa, some have sick family that need care, etc.
2.). You must have a unit rotation plan. We (US) have always been excellent at this. You can’t just throw people into a fight indefinitely. If a conflict lasts “years” units and people need rotated in and out unless you want to burn them out. Many countries don’t do that very well, possibly out of necessity (lack of numbers).
3.) You need to focus on morale building things (example: USO) as soon as a conflict starts. Again, something we do very well. You get actors and singers to volunteer for shows to the troops, have TV and radio interview folks and broadcast them, do things that “boost morale” and show soldiers what they are doing is valued. Even just lots of money, isn’t good enough. Most people need a morale boost.
If you go into a fight, always plan for “the long fight” but hope it’s over quickly.
Israel has been in a long low intensity conflict since, forever. But most of their actual wars where they mobilize their forces are over quickly.
If I had to guess, they aren’t set up for a “long fight.”
But that’s just my guess.
I think that's the # 1 cause of suicides and maybe PTSD of all American vets in wars after World War II.
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