Seven U.S. soldiers a month committed suicide last year

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=704544cfa3491189

The suicide rate in the U.S. Army has grown to its highest level in thirteen years.

Last year 83 soldiers committed suicide, the highest number in any year since 1993. Another four deaths under investigation may increase the number further. The figure only relates to the Army, and does not include Marines, Naval or Air Force servicemembers.

When suicides among soldiers in Iraq spiked in the summer of 2003, according to an article produced by The Associated Press, the Army put together a mental health assessment team that met with troops.

"We have increased the number of combat stress teams, increased suicide prevention and training, and we are working very aggressively to change the culture so that soldiers feel comfortable coming forward with their personal problems in a culture where historically admitting mental health issues was frowned upon," Army spokesman Col. Joseph Curtin told AP.

Of the confirmed suicides last year, 25 were soldiers deployed to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which amounts to 40 percent of the 64 suicides by Army soldiers in Iraq since the conflict began in March 2003.
more...

I am questioning the indoctrination and brainwashing in the Army
evidentally the drugs they are given is making these kids desperate and crying for help...

[spindrifter]

1. The military has an annual

suicide prevention conference:

http://www.ha.osd.mil/2004mspc/

They have been very concerned with the elevated suicide rates--needless to say they are devastating to morale....but the troubling thing is that they are sending people who have had known suicidal ideation back to combat situations.

[lovuian]

2. What I'm saying it there is evidence that the Army is pushing

the men and women to far...its obvious there is a terrible problem...

[noamnety]

3. it's not the drugs they are given.

"All is not okay or right for those of us who return home alive and supposedly well. What looks like normalcy and readjustment is only an illusion to be revealed by time and torment. Some soldiers come home missing limbs and other parts of their bodies. Still others will live with permanent scars from horrific events that no one other than those who served will ever understand.

We come home from war trying to put our lives back together but some cannot stand the memories and decide that death is better. They kill themselves because they are so haunted by seeing children killed and whole families wiped out.

They ask themselves how you put a price tag on someone else's life? The question goes unanswered as they become another casualty of the war. Heroes become another statistic to America, and they are another little article relegated to the back of a newspaper.

Still others come home to nothing. Families have abandoned them: husbands and wives have left these soldiers, and so have parents as well. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has become the norm amongst these soldiers because they don't know how to cope with returning to a society that will never understand what they have had to endure to liberate another country.

PTSD comes in many forms not understood by many: but yet if a soldier has it, America thinks the soldiers are crazy. PTSD comes in the form of depression, anger, regret, being confrontational, anxiety, chronic pain, compulsion, delusions, grief, guilt, dependence, loneliness, sleep disorders, suspiciousness/paranoia, low self-esteem and so many other things.

We are easily startled with a loud bang or noise and can be found ducking for cover when we get panicked. This is a result of artillery rounds going off in a combat zone, or an IED blowing up.

I myself have trouble coping with an everyday routine that deals with other people that often causes me to have a short fuse. A lot of soldiers lose multiple jobs just because they are trained to be killers and they have lived in an environment that is conducive to that. We are always on guard for our safety and that of our comrades. When you go to bed at night you wonder will you be sent home in a flag-draped coffin because a mortar round went off on your sleeping area.

Soldiers live in deplorable conditions, where burning your own feces is the order of the day. Where going days on end with no shower and the uniform you wear gets so crusty it sometimes sticks to your body becomes a common occurrence. We also deal with rationing water or even food for that matter. So when a soldier comes home to what they left they are unsure of what to do being in a civilized world again."

- Douglas Barber, 2005

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021106X.shtml

Doug will be included in the 2006 statistics.

[Oversea Visitor]

4. Damn fucking idoit you got blood on your hand

LOOK AT THE DAMN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Look at the cause of it
And dont spin about all the way to lower sucide
Look at what causing it.

[lovuian]

5. I agree its the elephant...

This is really horrible conditions they are putting our troops...