Posted on 11/20/2012 8:34:10 AM PST by kristinn
CALLAWAY — Libby Busbee pounded on the window of her son’s maroon Dodge Charger as he sat in the driveway of their home earlier this year. Locked inside his car, U.S. Army Spc. William Busbee sat with a .45-caliber gun pointed to the side of his head.
“Look at me,” his mother cried out as she tried to get her son’s attention. “Look at me.”
He wouldn’t look.
He stared out the front windshield, distant, Busbee said, relating the story from an apartment complex in Callaway.
“I kept yelling, ‘Don’t you do this. Don’t do it.’ He wouldn’t turn his head to look at me,” she said, looking down at the burning cigarette in her hand.
A 911 call was made. The police pulled her away from the car.
William, Libby Busbee’s 23-year-old son, was talking with a police officer when he fired a shot through the front windshield of his car, according to the police report.
The police recoiled. William rapped on the window in apparent frustration, the report indicated.
Then the second shot was heard.
“I knew that was the one,” said Libby Busbee.
William Busbee took his life in March with his mother and sisters looking on.
Casualty of war?
William Busbee was no casualty of the war in Afghanistan. He was a casualty of his own mind, his mother said.
Libby Busbee bowed her head, talking as she sat next to a bird-of-paradise on the front porch of her apartment. She could no longer live in the home on 12th Street.
“They wouldn’t let me talk to him,” she said, referring to the day her son shot himself. “I know if he was able to see me he wouldn’t have done it.”
According to a Veterans Affairs report this spring, a veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 suicides have occurred since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began. For every service member who dies in battle, 25 veterans die by their own hands.
According to a Pentagon report, more American active service members have killed themselves in the first six months of 2012 than in the first six months of any of the previous 11 years, The Associated Press reported.
The report reveals 154 service members killed themselves in the first 155 days of 2012 alone. The number of deaths by suicide is 50 percent higher than combat deaths in Afghanistan during the same period and an 18 percent increase over active service member suicides in the first six months of 2011.
And, while only 1 percent of Americans have served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, veterans of these conflicts represent 20 percent of all suicides in the United States, the VA reported.
SNIP
In the aftermath of WWI, they were dropping at the rate of two per day. The numbers have only climbed since then.
Quite up to date.
just make sure he doens;t get raped, rapes jumped up to 19,000 last year and that was just the reported ones.
How many are not reported?
My oldest wants marine recon or navy seal, and I;ve told him there is no way in hell he will join whilst these PC policies are in place and obama is President especially after Libya and how oabma dealt with that
“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.
I was never in combat, but I was active duty 85-89 and we went to the Persian Gulf... and they do indeed give a lot of shots to service members. Also as a reservist from 93-01... shots and more shots. I don’t get shots anymore, not even flu shots. I figure I’m souped up for life with all the shots I got.
Great point, Joe. All three of my uncles are regular church goers and speak openly of their commitment to Christ. My uncle Tom credits religion with getting him out of Nam alive.
My buddy Alan, on the other hand, was a twice-a-year Catholic and even mentioned that they weren’t allowed to have prayers in his platoon due to military regs. I found that disturbing.
Obama’s fault.
I’m getting more and more convinced that they are trying to demoralize the military. From ROEs, cutting back healthcare, multiple deployments, no support back home, on and on.
I watched Dr. Zhivago last night with our oldest. They Bolshi’s used the military who was bruised and broken from WW2 to rise up....and they did. Look at what they did to them in Vietnam and hoped for the same result by parading ‘anti-US soldiers’ in front of the media.
Part of that loneliness and lack of folks you can relate to could come from these guys not joining vet organizations like VFW and AL for whatever reason. I never understood why they didn’t. I had my application in after I got back from Afghanistan.
They do this even when these guys are on the battlefield...and they give them uppers to keep them alert and on edge.
I have been fighting this fight for a long time. NO ONE LISTENS.
exactly
people are saying this is because of war, no it is not.
Vets come back to a place which says thank you and then the the vee is on their own.
They can;t get jobs, the VA is a waste, they don;t have the pals around them
PC is killing the military and last year the homosexuals, cross dressers can serve openly, .
Since that came into affect the rapes on men jumped like it never has.
19,000 sexual assaults on men in one year, just one year, when was that year.?
Last year, the year after homosexuals and cross dressers can serve openly.
Then look around at some who now join, they;re a waste of time, whilst we have good men joining we also get for every good person joining we get a PC idiot or someone looking for their free school, loans paid off, VA etc.
We want to get rid of suicides ot make it go down then stop the PC nonsense, stop letting poeple join who will never handle the military and are more suited to picking tulips in the flower garden.
They need God, not pills.
kristinn:
According to a Veterans Affairs report this spring, a veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes.
Bloody Sam Roberts:
In the aftermath of WWI, they were dropping at the rate of two per day. The numbers have only climbed since then.
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That comparison is even more extreme when one considers the incredible numeric difference in the two wars. So many more WWII veterans compared to the Sand Wars.
Agree He was a casualty of his own mind.
I remember sitting around with him, my father, their other brother, a couple of cousins, and another young man from the neighborhood ~ we were having a beer ~ which at my age they shouldn't have been feeding me, but their talk was of my wounded Ranger uncle's shoulder.
They were passing me around from shoulder to shoulder, except my Ranger uncle ~ his wounds weren't quite healed ~ then my mother and grandmother stopped into the kitchen to see what I was doing.
That event and their faces and conversations are etched in stone in my mind. Forever young and strong and free. All of them had served in the war ~ no complaints ~ but yet my uncle's wounds were always of concern to my father and their friends ~ they never quite healed, and he really wasn't the same young fellow who'd gone off to be a soldier and answered that key question ~ "Would you prefer to mix cocktails at a party or go hunting"?
That is an excellent question. Also, it would be nice to compare the rates of similar allies, Canada, England, Australia.
I think the suicide rate is directly related to the "deployment tempo". The Army troops are here for a year or 2 and then gone on another one year tour.
One way to test my theory is to compare rates for Air Force and Marines. I believe the Air Force has the shortest average deployment time of about a quarter year. The Marines then follow with an average of about half a year. The Army still insists on their one year deployment.
Check to see if there is a statistically significant difference in suicide rates due to deployment while controlling for other common factors.
My sense is that the nation has burned it's military candle on both ends since bosnia followed by the campaigns in iraq/afghan and then the extended decade+ of nation building in both those nations.
The troops are burned out AND they've seen and experienced stuff normal to war.
Stop repeat deployments ,for one thing.
Even some NG units are seeing 2 and 3 tours in a row.
At least during WWII, everyone served in some capacity, odds are if you were over 18, you were fighting somewhere, and of course even on the home front, everyone got involved as well. The country was united.
Every war ever since, has been a case of only a few actually fighting, and back home, it was far from united, as we saw with Vietnam. People back home didn’t relate to the soldiers that were returning, some even despised them, calling them “baby killers.” And of course the saying during the Iraq was “While the military went to war, America went to the mall.”
kristinn:
According to a Veterans Affairs report this spring, a veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes.
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This is all vets not just recent vets.
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