Originally posted by Bunch
It goes beyond mental health for military members deployed. Is certainly part of it but the DoD needs to do more for our service members.

People are having marital problems, people are having problems readjusting to life out of deployment areas, people are nervous about when that next deployment is going to be. The DoD needs to develop an all inclusive plan to help service members. To include:

-shorter deployments

-longer time on station between deployments

-a mandatory program to help service members adjust to life back on station or civilian life after deployments.

-Identify service members that are having marital problems during deplyments and provide them with counseling

-mandatory mental health evaluations for those who have been involved in combat.

And thats just what I can think of right now, there is so much more that they could be doing right now.

Most of these services are already available to soldiers. Unfortunetly alot of soldiers won't use them because of pride. During the mandatory health evals all a soldier has to say is that there is nothing wrong with him and that is that. Now if a soldier says that he feels a certain way then they go and schedule a series of appointments.

The problem with the shorter deployments and longer time at home is that you can't have both. To give soldiers more time at home they have extended the deployment time by 3 months. That way most get 2 years stabilization at home.

These bulk of these suicides are preventable. One of the most depressing thoughts for a soldier is a long drawn out affair of half measures. With no game clock or goal posts in sight.

"What's it like here?"

"We get up, go out, kill a few of them. Then they kill a few of us. Next day,
same thing. That's it."

To a combat soldier, this scenario is a nightmare. A seemingly drawn-out, non-ending war of attrition is a hateful, disgusting concept to a soldier, and if you don't believe it, ask one.

Thousand yard stare? A combination of exhaustion and numb resignation with no goal line in sight.

During the Civil War, most troops were infantrymen, and may have seen 100-159 days of combat spread over four years of war. By WWII, only 25% of the military were infantry, and the average number of days in combat for an infantryman in the Pacific was about 40 days. The 1st Marine Division who saw more action than any other division in the Pacific, spent 275 days in combat, spread over three years. That averages to less than 100 days per year. In Europe, the 2nd Infantry Division had the record, with 400 days of time in combat, spread from August of 1942, to May of 1945.

By Vietnam, the average infantry soldier saw about 240 days of combat in a single year! In fact, right now much greater numbers are piling up on our troops in Iraq.

Thus, we are seeing many more cases of "soldiers heart," "shell shock," "battle fatigue," or as they now call it, "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome."

A knowing commander will arrange for his men a week to two-week wind down period after combat operations in a remote, isolated area before they return to their loved ones. In this current manner of rapid transportation, it is most difficult for a young man to transition straight from the stressful environment of combat, and instantly return to loved ones.

There are seemingly horrific things one is absolutely required to do in combat that in a peacetime setting would seem unnecessary and at times extremely barbaric. There are other shocking things one experiences in combat that a non-combatant cannot fully understand, as they have absolutely NOTHING to compare to.

Thus, a combatant is not only reluctant to share their barbaric behavior, or horrific experiences with one who has no valid reference point, but at times, one cannot even find the words.

Oh, the military eventually gives it a shot. Currently there are counselors for those who may sufferer from combat stress, and they have drugs to offset the anxietieis. There are psychologists and psychiatrists who are available to help with the nighmares.

Some bad news. Drugs make it all the worse, and at best delay the healing process. Psychiatrists WHO HAVE NO EXPERIENCE IN COMBAT cannot fully understand, and they have absolutely nothing to compare it to.

However, given a week or two in relative isolation with time to reflect and reset the "go ballistic" mode, conversations with older, experienced combat veterans can eliminate many of their concerns.

You see, to an older combat veteran, there is NOTHING that the younger man can say or relate that will shock the older veterans. Nothing. There is nothing the younger combat veteran experienced in combat that will disgust or offend the older veteran.

It is this bond of understanding among warriors that will enable the younger man to share his fears, nightmares, doubts, and possibly guilty thoughts. How often have we heard combat veterans say, "You had to be there."

While in combat, many things occur quickly, threatening at times to overwhelm the senses and the very ability to reason. Imagine for a moment that the mind is like an open storage building. During combat, everything unholy is being furiously tossed in at random, thrown in with reckless abandon, some boxed, some not; everything out of place, out of order, and soon this room withing - there is a jumble of chaos. You can't effectively navigate. You can't quite sort things out.

Where the brief isolation and discussion with older combat veterans can help is to gently help get things placed in perspective, positioned in relative order, and thus make the garbage forcibly thrown in more acceptable, more carefully spaced, and thus more effective to deal with.

The nightmares will never go away completely, but with good, understanding help, the traumatic events can be diminished significantly when properly placed in order; hopefully as time goes on, toward the back of the storgage.

But one must have a break between combat action and return to their loved ones. Time to think. Time to reflect. Time to adjust.

"All of you who have killed anyone or touched anyone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh day you must purify yourselves and your captives." Numbers 31:19 NIV

Good advice then, good advice now.

Originally posted by Reddupo
Humans are not meant to murder. It's like taking a sports car offroad. The soldier, the car, will break down. We should return to our rightful places in the grand cycle of nature.

[edit on 1-12-2008 by Reddupo]

Humans were not "meant" for anything specifically other than to be yet another vehicle for the perpetuation of the genes.


This type of "Humans were not meant for..." cracks me up.

If you raise a child to be a killer, he won't have any issues with it as an adult. However, if you take someone from a society based on rules and respecting your fellowman, and put him in a warzone, than the conflict which occurs between what he was taught and what he is living causes huge psychic issues which often lead to behavior such as suicide.

"Humans were not meant to..." Puhlease.

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
Humans were not "meant" for anything specifically other than to be yet another vehicle for the perpetuation of the genes.


This type of "Humans were not meant for..." cracks me up.

Yes, reproduction, self defense, hunt. Very basic animal instincts that we are meant to do. You could argue things like search for knowledge, .etc but that's superfluous to this conversation. Within in these innate behaviors, you do not find anything that you find in war.

If you raise a child to be a killer, he won't have any issues with it as an adult.

What have you seen, experienced, read, heard of, .etc to say this with such certainty?

Originally posted by Reddupo

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
Humans were not "meant" for anything specifically other than to be yet another vehicle for the perpetuation of the genes.


This type of "Humans were not meant for..." cracks me up.

Yes, reproduction, self defense, hunt. Very basic animal instincts that we are meant to do. You could argue things like search for knowledge, .etc but that's superfluous to this conversation. Within in these innate behaviors, you do not find anything that you find in war.

If you raise a child to be a killer, he won't have any issues with it as an adult.

What have you seen, experienced, read, heard of, .etc to say this with such certainty?

One word... Vikings.

I wonder if oppressors commit suicide more than the oppressed? this may have something to do with it.
To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty.
Maximilien Robespierre

[edit on 3-12-2008 by earthman4]

People commit suicide when their problems exceed their coping mechanisms.

And studies are showing that some poeple can handle trauma better then others because they have the chemical compisition to handle stress.
They are able to tell by blood tests who can handle stressful situations and who can't.

People do have the capability to kill. But it is the circumstances that make it trauma or not. If someone threatened your family in your home with a gun, you are probably going to feeel bad if you kill the intruder, but not devastated. But if you have to kill an unarmed civilian walking up to your car just because, that is going to do things to you.

And to see children either used or inadvertantly killed is just devastating.

IN war you see families torn apart. Widows grieving. Mothers losing their entire brood. That is something no one should see. These are un natural.

In cave man days, war only lasted as long as it had too. You had a battle, Either you got the territory you wanted or you didn't. They didn't last for 10 years with constant and un neccessary death.

As for the PP talking about medications. I have dealt with a lot of mental illness in my life. Induced or natural. It is not an easy thing to deal with. It is never handled by one medication. EAch person is different. If one doesn't work another needs to be tried. Several may need to be tried. And it needs to be couples with constant counseling and stress relieving techniques.

I highly doubt that these kind of services are being provided by the government. There are many local programs that will do it for sliding fee scale. And it won't hurt to contact your local health department.

It sucks you are sent to serve your country and left for nothing afterwards.
At the very least, it should mean that medically you should have the best.

But since our government can't even do that, you have to take matters into your own hands instead of saying: they won't help me so I won't help me. it is a mind job that the institution you represent calls on you to kill people, and then not take care of you and dismiss you when they are done with you. While you are away they don't take care of your family. But like those who work on dangerous fishing boats or mines, you have to see it for what it is, it is just jobs. heartbreaking jobs.
And many people sign up to be in the service without ever considering that there could be a war started and they will be called into it. And they are not mentally capable of handling it.

People need to know their resources and don't tend to look for them. There are wonderful hotlines out there. If anyone reads postsecret they know that the hotlines have saved quite a few people.

There are other sources then what the government has provided for you.
People need coping mechanisms. They need an outlet. They need a program to adjust back to civilian life.

If I had the money, just by what I am reading here, I would start a program that did those very things. A halfway house of sorts.

Its heartbreaking that our countries finest are treated this way. But it is also nothing new.
This is not a new revelation. Like the PP mentioned. The vets of other wars go through the same thing.

And the screwed up priorities is rampant throughout our society. We pay police officers 30k while baseball players get 100 million. Absolutely ridiculous. pop stars should not get millions for singing and dancing.Instead of giving our money to them, we should give it those who need and deserve it the most.

Originally posted by nixie_nox

People commit suicide when their problems exceed their coping mechanisms.

Thank you... see it has nothing to do with "people were not meant to kill others" hypohtesis, it has to do with the fact that these people who went to war were raised in a system where their coping mechanisms were not centered around killing.

But now they are, and they are living back in society... they can't deal anymore so they off themselves

blame the medication,it seems to have the effect of making merely troubled people suicidal.......seratonin uptake inhibitors actually supress serretonin,which is a neurotransimtter that causes feeling of wellbeing and happyness.

why do you want to supress serratonin in unhappy people!?,its that obvious what thier doing and what they control!