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
“Once away from the service they do not have someone to understand and relate with on a daily bases. “
Is it helpful for veterans to have other veterans around? Maybe at work, etc?
From ROEs, cutting back healthcare, multiple deployments, no support back home, on and on\
to add, having to share showers, and rooms wiht homosexuals, officers who are queer coming onto the young man,
Why no one ever bothers with this fact is beyond me but I guess many now are PC.
Rapes on men in one year, last year rose to 19,000, no coincidence that homosexuals and cross dressers can serve openly and ten we see a massive jump in rapes.
Then add the fact which no one ever talks about is that many join to get freebies, free school , loans paid off.
My neighbor had a kid just join to get all the freebies and that was it, he couldn;t be bothered about this country and has stated as such.
Why most think military members are all patriotic is beyond me, many are , some are not.
Some should not even serve or get in the military but today it is easy to get in.
Today a marine recruits only has to do two pulls up to get in and 3 to graduate.
Running tests are done in sneakers.
women one pull up , two to graduate
That is a joke
Get back to how it used to be, let people join based on if theyp;re good enough and strong enough, not have PC momma boy joining or lets ave more minorities or homosexuals and even now frigging cross dressers, WTH
Even on this thread some seem to think this is just about war, it is not.
Many kill themselves who have never even been on combat
Once they have seen the horrors of war, maybe it is too much.
Inded! I have worked with WWII and Korean War veterans and they have confided things to me that they witnessed or had to do or experienced at the hands of the enemy How any of them make it back with a sound mind is a miracle.
But the thing is, men who served in those wars did not have the support that the current veterans have. They internalized things and did not speak of them to anyone as a rule. Not family anyway. As an outside party they often told me things and said it was the first time they had spoken of it....and that was decades after the facts. Often we would cry together. There are things I wish I had not been told but I will not repeat them. I just carry them in a very heavy corner of my heart and pray for those who spoke of those things and carried the horrors with them for so long. I have no idea what the suicide rate was for the WWII and Korean War vets. I wonder if it was as bad as the current statistics.
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.
Compare suicide numbers of enlisted combat MOS types with officers/non-combat. Then study day-to-day relations (actual comments and deeds) between soldiers and lifelong civilians in the world (here, at home)—especially when they’re out and working jobs (or looking for jobs). Then you’ll be closer to the truth.
We live in a very “politically correct” (socially pathological, morally bankrupt) and deluded society, and our leadership began to turn against its own nation decades ago. An occasional holiday for false praise, psychological introspection and government offices won’t repair the general disdain and disrespect for men (real heterosexual men, who work with both their minds and their hands).
wouldn’t say burned out.
We now have men and women who should not be in, many today are not strong enough but because of PC we allow them in.
Our country has grown weak, mamby pamby land lets say.
Get rid of PC, toughen guys up, toughen our sons up, .
19,000 rapes on men last year, that figures rose hugely since homosexuals can serve openly.
Also a vet comes back, people say thank you but as a vet we see those people say thanks and then off to their homnes, their jobs, their friends.
The vet looks around, , can;t get a job, has no where to go, his pals are still serving who understand him and he feels left alone
Also many killing themselves are not or ever been in combat.
It’s time we stopped letting people join who we know can;t handle it.
How many have been raped but have to live with that and can;t tell anyone?.
How many NCO’s and officers have made a move or made a remark to a young guy who has just joined?
It really isn’t a video game...
This is exactly what they want. a crippled military leaves us vulnerable.
Makes me think of a George Carlin rant, about how we’ve softened the language:
I don’t like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protest themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse.
I’ll give you an example of that. There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to its’ absolute peak and maximum. Can’t take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called ‘shell shock’. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, ‘shell shock’. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago.
Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called ‘battle fatigue’. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. ‘Fatigue’ is a nicer word than ‘shock’. Shell shock! Battle fatigue.
Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called ‘operational exhaustion’. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now. ‘Operational exhaustion’. Sounds like something that might happen to your car.
Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called ‘Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. ‘Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’. I’ll bet you if we’d of still been calling it ‘shell shock’, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I’ll betcha. I’ll betcha.
wouldn’t say burned out.
We now have men and women who should not be in, many today are not strong enough but because of PC we allow them in.
Our country has grown weak, mamby pamby land lets say.
Get rid of PC, toughen guys up, toughen our sons up, .
19,000 rapes on men last year, that figures rose hugely since homosexuals can serve openly.
Also a vet comes back, people say thank you but as a vet we see those people say thanks and then off to their homnes, their jobs, their friends.
The vet looks around, , can;t get a job, has no where to go, his pals are still serving who understand him and he feels left alone
Also many killing themselves are not or ever been in combat.
It’s time we stopped letting people join who we know can;t handle it.
How many have been raped but have to live with that and can;t tell anyone?.
How many NCO’s and officers have made a move or made a remark to a young guy who has just joined?
stop this social changes and PC nonsense
The suicide warnings on psychoactive medication should be looked at very closely and why aren’t they?
I know a kid who got out the Marines recently. All he does is plot how he can get disability and has similar recently discharged friends who all scheme together.
One scheme they mentioned is claiming tinnitus and what to tell the audiologist doing the testing.
Pathetic.
I think this problems stems from a convergence of several things. Many young men have grown up without fathers. Even when there is a father figure it may be some metrosexual, PC wus of a man.
Government schools are filled with PC bull crap and no tolerance policies that do not even let boys get a little bloodied in a fist fight.
As a nation we no longer clearly identify our enemies and then vilify them. In WWII we fought against Japs and Krauts. In Vietnam we fought against Gooks. The effect of dehumanizing our enemies is a coping mechanism for the horrors of battle.
As a nation we are not willing to quickly destroy our enemy and we have hideous rules of engagement. This has resulted in multiple deployments, increased stress on military families and soldiers and marines have increased exposure to front lines compared to previous wars.
We need to teach boys to be men instead of focusing on being nice and accepting of faggots. Political correctness needs to be eliminated. Our enemy needs to defined. It is Islam and anyone that is part of that death cult. I don’t care how nice anyone’s Muslim friend is, they still worship a pedophile prophet and pray in the direction of a space rock. It is not a religion. Our war against Islam needs to be brief and brutal. They will never like us, but we can force them to submit to our will. They will fear us and at most respect us. If we don’t, they will certainly do it to us.
Add to the horrors the fact that most of the troops fighting are facing an equally horrible reality - they will be going back into that crucible time and time again. Granted the tours of duty aren't that long individually but they add up very quickly. The final straw is they, the troops, known that there is no end in sight - they will return time and time again until either killed or so severely wounded that they are retired.
This feeling and the under laying facts aren't new. A much smaller precursor was seen at the tail end of Vietnam. It was national policy that no SAC asset would be in SEA long enough to achieve short-tour credit (6 months plus a day). Until January 1972 this wasn't a serious problem. Then came BULLET SHOT. Between January 1972 and October 1973 SAC personnel were rotated in and out of SEA on a 165 day cycle. They came home for 30 to 45 days went right back, repeatedly. Me, I had only 2 of those in a year. Friends that I went through school with were working on their fourth one in Oct 73. The divorce rates went sky high, retention dropped like a rock, and moral issues were rift. While I am unaware of any suicides I am very confident that this was lurking in the back of many minds. How else could they escape from the pressures they were experiencing?
“First the people joining are good people but some are not suited and should not be in the military, PC is killing the military.”
There is your answer. It is WHO they military is trying to recruit, not what happens to them after they join up. I know people that have to work the behavioral health centers for the military and their take is that the military seems to be getting a lot of crybabies, the ‘Gen X/Y/WhyMe’ crowd. As a corporate person I see this, too. If you don’t pat these kids on the head every day and tell them what good boys and girls they are they have ‘meltdowns’, just like they did when they were little kids. No personal discipline whatsoever, just the Dr. Spock routine. If these kids took a dump on the living room rug mommy would pat them on the head and say, “Gosh, bobby, I hope you can make the bathroom next time.”
Admit it? That was and is the left’s GOAL!!!
“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.”
Since WWII we have also never fought all out to destroy the enemy once and for all, as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I have attended many of the American Psychiatric Association’s lectures and programs put on by the head psychiatrists at Walter Reed and other research facilities. I follow the military suicide report daily and have for a long time. It is frustrating that the military has done little except push pills.
One of the big problems is that the soldiers know that if they speak to a psychiatrist, they are gone. The Marines refer to psychiatrists as “Wizards” as they make soldiers disappear! Top that off with the 180 day supply of benzo’s they have been giving soldiers in the field and you have created an accident waiting to happen.
I spoke with a psychiatrist from Ft. Hood who was leaving. She mentioned that the normal staffing was 12 psychiatrists and when she left, there would be 4 remaining. Granted, this is where the psychiatrist shot the soldiers after not being able to find the Head Psychiatrist who would not block his being sent to Afghanistan.
The primary problem is due to the development of self that current soldiers have that was not the case in past wars. I spoke of this when I presented to a military think tank at the Naval Intelligence Office in Arlington VA just as we were entering the first Gulf War. I explained that the current soldiers would be less likely to follow orders and more likely to blame themselves for their individual actions than soldiers of previous wars. It’s exactly what has happened.
Which we are not allowed to win.
exactly.
These social changes, cross dressers, homosexuals, promoting minorities is not a coincidence.
This is the lefts way of using PC to change the military and now we get some joining , not because of love of country but because of freebies.
Hell how many have you met or seen and thought they;re military?
Why some keep talking about combat is beyond me, many who kill themselves have not even been in combat.
World war two etc had problems but today we have mamby pamby land, where many sons are raised with band aids for their little boo boos.
I went to the marine recruiter over the summer because my oldest wants marine recon or navy seal.
What a joke that was.
This marine thought he was rambo, kept talking about himself and how he guarded the President for 4 years, no combat himself.
Told my son he doesn;t have to share showers or rooms with homosexuals or men who want to wear a dress after work.
Really, my son can just say no, yea right but then the recruiter told me how great it was to have women in the marines and how women can serve on the front lines.
When I questioned hi as to why women do a different test but want the same job he had no idea what to say.
I’ts all PC
The man was an idiot who BTW coudln;’t even iron his pants and l0ooked like crap.
Many on our side think all military members are good, I;ve served and they;re not.
There has and always been bullies, idiots, thieves, druggies, cheats and now rapist homosexuals.
Rapes rose massively to 19,000 in one year since turd pokers can serve.
The left have been destroying the military for years and it;s time for our side to wake up.
BTW, Many serve each other, when in combat the country was not first, it was my mate next to me.
My obligation was to him not country at that time.
When youget back you hear people saing thank you but they go off on their merry way leaving you with no job, no one who can talk to you, no one understanding , hell it;s not even the same sense of humor in civilian life, or wasn;t before PC came
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