Why Are Army Recruiters Killing Themselves?

[easttexaslefty]

Why Are Army Recruiters Killing Themselves?

By MARK THOMPSON Thursday, Apr. 02, 2009

When Army Staff Sergeant Amanda Henderson ran into Staff Sergeant Larry
Flores in their Texas recruiting station last August, she was shocked by the dark
circles under his eyes and his ragged appearance. "Are you O.K.?" she asked the
normally squared-away soldier.

"Sergeant Henderson, I am just really tired," he replied. "I had such a bad,
long week, it was ridiculous."

The previous Saturday, Flores' commanders had berated him for poor
performance. He had worked every day since from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., trying to persuade
the youth of Nacogdoches to wear Army green.

"But I'm O.K.," he told her.

No, he wasn't. Later that night, Flores hanged himself in his garage with an
extension cord.

Henderson and her husband Patrick, both Army recruiters, were stunned. "I'll
never forget sitting there at Sergeant Flores' memorial service with my
husband and seeing his wife crying," Amanda recalls. "I remember looking over at
Patrick and going, 'Why did he do this to her? Why did he do this to his
children?' "

Patrick didn't say anything, and Amanda now says Flores' suicide "triggered"
something in her husband. Six weeks later, Patrick hanged himself with a dog
chain in their backyard shed.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now the longest waged by an
all-volunteer force in U.S. history. Even as soldiers rotate back into the field for
multiple and extended tours, the Army requires a constant supply of new recruits.

But the patriotic fervor that led so many to sign up after 9/11 is now eight
years past. That leaves recruiters with perhaps the toughest, if not the most
dangerous, job in the Army.

Last year alone, the number of recruiters who killed themselves was triple
the overall Army rate.

Like posttraumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, recruiter
suicides are a hidden cost of the nation's wars.

read more @
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1889152,00.html#

[NV Whino]

1. And this is only one part of the hidden cost of war.

[T Wolf]

2. Do they get unbearable pressure from above to meet their quotas,

or is it that they (finally) develop some guilt over suckering naive youngsters into becoming killing machines for corporate America?

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. Recruit a kid, watch him die in illegal wars and occupation of other nations

.
.
.

DOH

comes to mind . . .

[Horse with no Name]

4. If I understand correctly

the recruiters have to meet their quotas or they are deployed like the other kids they sign up to be maimed and killed.
A lot of pressure in saving your own ass...especially if nobody is buying what you are selling (even if you have to lie).