Marines try new age techniques to deal with high suicide rate

A few points to discuss here. First of all, is the high suicide incidence in the Marines and Army a system of a systemic problem in the US supremacy machine and movement that is unquestioned like a religion by many military members? They must be facing a serious problem if they are willing to turn to ideas that would be abhorred by many hard-core veterans and other military supporters. I think it may be a combination of the dehumanization of treating service members more and more like machines, combined with the reality of the immorality of what they believe to be a highly moral endeavor (war for US supremacy).


Marines studying mindfulness-based training

seattletimes.com...

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — The U.S. Marine Corps, known for turning out some of the military’s toughest warriors, is studying how to make its troops tougher through meditative practices, yoga-type stretching and exercises based on mindfulness.

Marine Corps officials say they will build a curriculum that would integrate mindfulness-based techniques into their training if they see positive results from a pilot project. Mindfulness is a Buddhist-inspired concept that emphasizes active attention on the moment to keep the mind in the present.

Facing a record suicide rate and thousands of veterans seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress, the military has been searching for ways to reduce strains on service members burdened with more than a decade of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Marine Corps officials are testing a series of brain-calming exercises called “Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training” that they believe could enhance the performance of troops, who are under mounting pressures from long deployments and looming budget cuts that are expected to trim forces.

Maybe if they stop using them to test medical experiments, forcing them to kill innocent people, ect. they wouldn't feel the need to kill themselves.

No one has touched this thread so I guess I will fire a salvo on it.



"active attention on the moment to keep the mind in the present"

As some of us know we have circumstantial evidence that et uses these techniques and humans have been informed of this fact and encouraged to use this practice.

Look at India for example: The open mindedness and never mind the historical examples of what many of their greatest gurus and meditative practitioners have achieved.

There is something to it most definitely.

I also noticed in a few posts here a bit of speculation on the fact that we do not experience reality as fast and immediately as we would like to think by a small delay that is defined yet unknown to a large extent.

It then may be possible that the meditative effects do have significant training effects that allow for better processing abilities.

reply to post by dc4lifeskater


Precisely.

When a good heart is conned into murdering under the guise that it is for the protection of their country, and then they find out they have murdered whether directly or indirectly for the financial and power benefit of a few who think they are nothing but dumb animals, its hard to accept. Some are so betrayed and distraught they kill themselves to end the mental torment it is causing them.

Heres a big idea: shut down the military industrial complex, and bring ALL military personnel home if you really want to stop a sky rocketing suicide rate. Which of course wont happen because the PTB dont give a damn about the military personnel beyond how much they can profit from their actions executed under false pretenses.

Heres the real answer, folks.

Stop enlisting.

Originally posted by dc4lifeskater
Maybe if they stop using them to test medical experiments, forcing them to kill innocent people, ect. they wouldn't feel the need to kill themselves.

I find that offensive in that no one but our species is going to process the reality of violence and conflict in this world if we do not do it ourselves.

If you knew history you would know that even if it was all just an elaborate setup by unseen forces or a real world instigation of the human condition toward a violent end we would have a need for hardened forces such as the marines.

Keeping them safe and capable is a priority not just of our nations dicatators of policy but of everyone on the planet as far as we should be concerned.

How Ironic trying to use Buddhist practices to try and keep warriors consciences from driving them to suicide... Gee maybe if we stopped sending them off to unnecessary immoral wars and acting like collateral damage is no big deal they might not want to kill themselves...

Originally posted by hawkiye
How Ironic trying to use Buddhist practices to try and keep warriors consciences from driving them to suicide... Gee maybe if we stopped sending them off to unnecessary immoral wars and acting like collateral damage is no big deal they might not ant to kill themselves...

I dig the idea you put forth but you and I both know that as a planet full of billions of processors with the key processors as corrupted psychopaths we simply must do as the actions of those proccessors dictate.

We know we should not be wasting our precious resources and time fighting amongst each other but does that stop all the bull#.

Ultimately the best forces will prevail and thats what this is all about.

Originally posted by Sergiana

Originally posted by hawkiye
How Ironic trying to use Buddhist practices to try and keep warriors consciences from driving them to suicide... Gee maybe if we stopped sending them off to unnecessary immoral wars and acting like collateral damage is no big deal they might not ant to kill themselves...

I dig the idea you put forth but you and I both know that as a planet full of billions of processors with the key processors as corrupted psychopaths we simply must do as the actions of those proccessors dictate.

We know we should not be wasting our precious resources and time fighting amongst each other but does that stop all the bull#.

Ultimately the best forces will prevail and thats what this is all about.

edit on 31-1-2013 by Sergiana because: I cant think well due to brain injury

Where are you getting this we from? We do not have to do anything they dictate and a growing number are not. We can and will "just say no" to these psychopaths in growing numbers.

Perhaps if they weren't sending these men through the meat grinder 3, 4 or even 6+ times for combat tours, they wouldn't shoot themselves in fits of depression or PTSD quite so often. Vietnam was 12 months and a flight out. Done. Over. (with some exceptions. depending on Service being talked about). Another fact that is surprising for past wars:

Let us observe the statistical data from previous wars:

The average combatant during WWII saw approximately 40 days of actual combat.

In Korea, the average was approximately 180 days, but this is difficult to verify.

In Vietnam we saw an average of approximately 240 days of combat per tour. Most of us did one tour; some two, and very rarely three.

Now research is revealing that our troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are experiencing over 310 days of combat ( “Day of Combat” is a day that you don’t know if you will live or die that day).

Source

The problem is literally one we can put into raw numbers and look at. To even allow these guys to go back, generally speaking, 3+ times? Well, it's using them to burn-out in my opinion. For these soldiers and Marines? Burn out would seem to be physical and mental as much as figurative.

If they want to drop the suicide rate? End the wars after over a decade of hard fighting .... or get fresh people. One of the two and it'll have to be ordered. The guys I know personally who rotate back and forth and well as those I read about are too dedicated to their unit and each other to be the ones to step out voluntarily....until they literally fail in multiple ways.

New Study: U.S. Military Suicide Rate Now Likely Double or Triple Civil War’s Read more: nation.time.com...

White active-duty Union military personnel suicide rates ranged from 8.74 – 14.54 per 100,000 during the Civil War, and surged to 30.4 the year after the war. For black Union troops, rates ranged from 17.7 in the first year of their entry into the war (1863), to 0 in their second year, and 1.8 in the year after the war.

For comparison, the current rate of U.S. military suicides is just over 20 per 100,000 troops. To further put these figures into current context, there were more military suicides in 2010 (total suicides = 295), than during the entire four years of the Civil War, for which we found 278 documented Union suicides, and forces were of comparable size. Read more: nation.time.com...

If on every Friday, the US mainstream media report, "Breaking news.... 7 soldiers killed themselves this week!" and repeated this EVERY week... maybe more attention would be focused on THEM, instead of.... "26 dead, Sandy Hook, OMG we must do something!!"

Let's for once focus on REAL numbers and statistics when debating issues, it might make for a more substantial argument and possible solution to real problems vs exaggerated talking points.

What horror awaits us as our military succumbs to the insane beliefs which meditation techniques produce. One of the world's largest militaries coming to view itself as little gods running around in an "illusion" whereby good and evil are to be united, in which murder is no longer viewed as an evil, only demonstrates the insane times that we live in. A military, coming to the eastern religions beliefs in reincarnation, simply cannot view the deliberate taking of life as murder, for their belief simply states that it's not truly killing when the person who dies will come back to earth and be reborn into another fleshly body, thus starting the process all over again.  When a person can conclude that deliberate killing is not really murder, the world has a major problem on their hands when it's a military and leaders who  hold these beliefs. Why is it that the west cannot fathom the hypocrisy of meditation used to relieve suicide rates when the doctrine of nirvana is the desire for self-nonexistence, which is suicidal?

In all eastern religions, meditation is considered the necessary vehicle to attain its revelation and the fulfillment of the doctrines of these religions. So why is the west buying the lie that 'meditation' is some non-religious practice as it floods psychiatry, our school system, our corporate training schedules and our military? Why can the western nations not see that meditation is self-hypnotic and self-induced trances? Why can the western nations not realise that the UN has a meditation room in which it's members seek not the God of Heaven and Earth, but rather seek themselves which only justifies their "god like" right to inflict this same practice on everyone else? Truly, why are the great grand kids of Christian forefathers not seeing the major red flags as they insist that Jesus Christ be removed from its daily world yet hypocritically allow and follow the eastern religions brought into our schools, workplaces, governments and institutions? 

The world was in darkness.
The Creator made light and separated it from the darkness.
But the verdict in Heaven is that the Light came into the world, yet was rejected in favor of the darkness because it's deeds we're evil. 

Meditation involves the entering of the spirit world without going through Jesus. It's practitioners know about the option of prayer, they would just rather obtain "enlightenment" over submission to Christ.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Collectively the populations are but bricks of clay bring fired and placed in the last tower of Babylon.

There is something perverse to me about them using Buddhist practices.

So are they going to try and calm their minds so they can kill more effectively without it troubling their consciences somewhere down the line?

reply to post by CB328


Funny how people call ancient, universal practices 'new age'.

Originally posted by Kram09
There is something perverse to me about them using Buddhist practices.

The samurai did.

This reminds me a bit of ' The men who stare at goats '. Maybe this knowledge has been in their possession for a while and they decided to blow the dust off the files.

reply to post by BlueMule


I stand corrected sir.

why not simply allow them to contact freinds and families using the new ecrypted network apps on iphones and andriod phones?

the new apps can allow encrypted phone calls to the us and is up to government standards,
these apps can even ring home phones with the encryption only stopping once on us soil.

if these people had more communication with loved ones back in the US i feel the rate of suicide would drop fast.

we have the tech, all it takes is a smart phone and contract.

seeing friendly faces on a more regular basis would do wounders

just MHO

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