It appears as though more U.S. soldiers have taken their own lives than have died in combat in Afghanistan (from the invasion up until this past summer). Yeah, no kidding. Read it for yourself. I guess this is one of those secrets that the brass and the military industrial complex don’t really want us to know. Or perhaps it’s not a secret. Maybe it’s just one of those things that civilians don’t want to know because of how it will make us feel.
That said, we watched a pretty powerful video about PTSD and war and I’d like to hear what you think about it. (You can watch the video HERE if you’d like to see it.) But do check out this article on the Iraq war and PTSD.
# 1/3:
The video we watched in class last Friday was very, very powerful; I found myself tearing up multiple times. As a psychology major, I am aware of PTSD and the effects that it has on people. In fact, I have experienced them first hand -kind of. My boyfriend's Dad fought in the Vietnam War. Although he never sought counseling for the psychological effects that the war has left on him, my boyfriend tells me that his Dad still suffers greatly. For example, he continues to have nightmares about the war, reliving the trauma in his dreams. Sometimes he will wake up screaming. Additionally, he is a very heavy drinker- possibly even an alcoholic. He has gotten two DUI’s and has even had to serve a year on house arrest. According to my boyfriend, the next time his Dad gets caught he will serve a jail sentence. Clearly he was a problem, but both he chooses to ignore. Although I am unaware if his alcoholism is a direct result of the war, I always assume that it is.
# 2/3:
However, he is not alone in his reluctance to seek help. Like the video we watched in class, many soldiers do not seek help for their post-war psychological issues. Many post-war veterans feel that it is a sign of weakness for them to admit that the war has caused them problems, but I strongly disagree. How can one kill people and watch others kill and NOT be affected by it? To feel psychological effects from fighting in a war is not a sign of weakness at all.
# 3/3:
On a side note, I do not solely blame the individual for not seeking help from outside sources. Rather, much of the blame lies on the military system and how superiors deal with subordinates who are experiencing psychological issues. There is definitely a VERY social stigma associated with soldiers who are affected by PTSD, anxiety, stress, depression, etc. The stigma created by superiors is then adopted by many subordinates, which makes it even more difficult for those experiencing PTSD or other mental issues to admit they have a problem and get help. Clearly, something needs to be in order to negate this social stigma. If the social stigma is not addressed and taken care of, it seems only obvious that soldiers will continue taking their lives at rapid rates.
The video in class today blew my mind and broke my heart. My thoughts and prayers go out to the soldiers and families in all walks of the military. It is a tolling business to get into and it seems as though once you are there, you are stuck and those experiences in your life will be there to haunt you the rest of your life. It’s so depressing to try to put yourself into their shoes. It almost makes you cry.
Seeing what the marines’ initial response to those who asked for help in the video was infuriating. The article makes it seem as though they are attempting to make progress, but the stigma cannot be lifted overnight. I feel like it would have to be a part of training “not to be a pussy.” When you see death and cause death everyday, its not “being a pussy” needing to let out that pain. It’s pretty obvious that emotional wounds are more deadly in the military than physical ones. Losing your mind to hallucinations and voices other than your own is not curable with a cast or a surgery. Those men need the right kind of help and there absolutely should not be anyone standing in their way and making them feel like lesser men because they need to get better.
This video opened my eyes and heart to a problem I never considered much before. I have a newfound respect for those I know who have served in Iraq and my heart and prayers are now with them. I can’t imagine having to see some of the things they must have seen. No one who is brave enough to serve in Iraq should be disrespected and called “a pussy” because they need to talk to someone about thoughts they are having that are causing them pain. If the military is conditioning its soldiers to feel as though their life does not matter and is killing more of its own than the enemy does, there is a problem and a big one. The article is implying that the military has realized this problem and it taking initiative to fix it but I’m not so sure that the video implies the same initiative. I hope those soldiers get the help they need.
As I am sure this is the case for the majority of Americans this situation hits close to home. It is hard to imagine that in just 6 short months the majority of my closest college friends will be faced with many of the issues mentioned in this article and video. I am scared to see the various reactions they will all endure after their first tour overseas.
This is an extremely large problem and after having watched the video I am ashamed to see how some of their fellow soldiers react to these problems. They clearly need help. It’s not like there are only a couple of soldiers are having these issues while at war and after returning. They are seeing life altering things happen on a daily basis and need help coping. The supposedly unaffected soldiers are just lying to themselves acting like nothing affects them, when in reality they are just as scared. None of Jeff Lucey’s team had any clue he was feeling this way, but that is the environment we force them to fight in. If you tell someone about these feelings you are immediately tagged as a wimp, and unable to fulfill your duties.
In the video, Andrew was immediately sent home when he finally spoke up, after initially being turned down when trying to get help. I’m not sure what’s worse; being sent home and not cared for properly, or then being sent back and expected to relive these situations every day. We need a more efficient way of detecting post- traumatic stress disorder and depression, or another way of preventing it all together. These soldiers need an outlet to tell someone how they are feeling and hopefully get the help they need. We are the country with almost half of the worlds spending on war and yet we can’t find a way to protect our soldiers when they are at home. That doesn’t make any sense. There should not be soldiers dying from the affects of war after they return home. If we are going to continue to send soldiers to war we need to find a solution to keep them emotionally stable.
We must not forget one of the first lessons that we learned in our sociology class this semester about the most personal action a human being can partake in. We came to the conclusion that taking one’s own life is, by and large, the most personal thing any one person can choose to do. However, we also concluded that society plays a large role in some of the determining factors a person must think about when they are contemplating suicide.
With that being said, this article focuses on suicide in the military, specifically people who have been deployed in Afghanistan since the wars in the Middle East began in 2001. Also highlighted in the article is the apparent failure of the United States Military to care for people with psychological trauma stemming from their time of service.
I’ve read countless accounts of people’s time in war. I’ve seen graphic pictures and videos documenting the real life violence and gore that has occurred over seas. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to see those things in person, or to be the direct cause of those resulting images. The only way I can even begin to relate is by thinking about having a relatively infrequent nightmare, and wanting desperately to escape. I would do anything to make the fear and the haunting images go away, and I struggle until I wake up. However, I know for many of these people that return from the pressures and violence of war, those haunting images are not infrequent nightmares; they’re burned into their brains, acting as constant reminders of everything bad that exists in this world. And some of them, apparently, would also do anything to escape.
It is obviously a disturbing statistical fact that more people who are serving our country (in whatever way and for whatever reason) are claiming their own lives than are being killed in action. It is a gross misdeed by their corporation (the U.S. Military) not to be able to help them in their times of need. These people are offering their service in the form of their mortality, and even when they make it out of combat alive, many still find themselves facing thoughts and possibilities of death because of unattended mental and psychological wounds.
I have found the discussions we have been having in class about war, soldiers, and post traumatic stress disorder very interesting, mostly because all of this is getting closer and closer to affecting my life every day. I am in Penn State’s Army ROTC, and signed a contract in December of last year that locks me into eight years of mandatory service with the United States Army upon my graduation. Before I entered college and began this program, I had very little contact with anything military, and very little knowledge about the goings on in the current military. Even now, I wouldn’t really consider myself to versed in a lot of things, I know the things that they teach us in class very well, but the things that actually go on in the military, such as PTSD and dealing with the issues of being deployed, are not really mentioned much. We are required to watch a documentary made by the Army each year about these kind of things, but it is the same thing every time, and we only spend that one day watching the video and discussing it for a couple minutes, and then we forget all about it. In “ROTC Land” a lot of people take the Army for what we see in our training, and a lot of people in the program, including myself, joke around constantly. I know that we should take it more seriously, and that we need to mentally prepare ourselves for what we are really going to face in combat, but it is hard to do, because nobody wants to talk about it. I am not sure about the others in the program, but I know that it’s there, it is just a hard thing to talk about. As long as we are not in the direct situation, and we are not in imminent threat of it, it’s something that I like to pretend does not exist. This is how a lot of people feel, both in the military and in the civilian world, and I feel like the reason it is not talked about much is because people like to pretend it is not there, but it is and we need to start recognizing it and helping those suffering to deal with it, and try to help those in threat of it from reaching that point.
I was saddened to find such a high (and increasing) rate of suicide among US soldiers. I am grateful to find that the military is spending money and using experts to try to help lesson the number of suicides. However, I feel that there are several factors that are included in being a soldier and that the military will not be able to fix unless there is no more war.
A soldier’s training includes accepting death for one’s country and how to detach, which helps to give them the tiny bit of clarity in combat situations that may save their lives. They are taught how to live in a war zone – how to act, what perspective to use, and what to look for if they are expected to survive. This is not common or natural for us, but while the soldier is in the war zone it is necessary for them to survive. Those who cannot stand the extreme stress and worry of a warzone may take their lives or die from stress-related causes. For those who make it home, suddenly their worlds are turned upside down again. They find that their family and home life has changed since they have been missing. Suddenly, their detachment training becomes an issue because they have an issue reconnecting to people and restarting their lives. Killing a human isn’t easy, but living with that is even more difficult when you are surrounded by people who have never had a need to fight or kill in order to survive. Suddenly, it becomes difficult to live with yourself and take part in a normal life. If a soldier has accepted death as an alternative to the pain, I can imagine that they would struggle with the conflict in their own life.
The best solution to this would obviously be to not send soldiers into warzones. This seems unlikely with the world’s conflict and the US as the military power of the world. Another option is to change the training of the soldiers so that they are not as detached and do not accept death. This could have a huge negative impact on our soldiers, as they would be more likely to panic in combat situations and would probably develop other psychological disorders long before their return home. I feel that the best option is to limit a soldier’s time in a combat situation. This means shortening their time in the war zone, and increasing their time that they have to talk to their families while away as well as increasing their breaks from war. Although they would still have to be watched, having the increased contact with family and friends would (hopefully) make them feel more like they belong and like a more integral and necessary part of this world. I don’t think we will ever be able to beat PTSD and the trauma that comes with taking a life or having one’s life threatened on a daily basis. However, we can sit and try to understand what is going on in order to help our soldiers as much as possible.
The film we watched in class was most definitely moving, and it allowed you to see the dark side of war, the side that shows you that war not only affects those killed or wounded in battle, but those who are psychologically damaged, and those who are trying to help them.
I thought it was incredibly saddening to hear that the one man hung himself after many months of dealing with PTSD. It is perhaps even more saddening and sobering that his mother was able to see he was different, and he played that song for her, and yet she could not stop him. It was sad to see his relationship fail because of his psychological problems after returning from war. These things, I am now seeing, can happen to anyone, and can truly affect the rest of someone’s life.
I was happy that we were given the opportunity to hear from a young man, I believe his name was Jacob, and see first hand just how war has affected him. It is different when you hear it coming out of a person’s mouth who has gone through it or is going through it over someone who does not know exactly how someone else feels. It seems more real, and it made me wonder what Jacob must have been like before the war.
I know that I would most likely never make it through a war, and would probably be psychologically damaged if I did. I can only imagine the amount of stress and depression these people are experiencing, and can only say that I wish it were not this way. It is not fair that young men and women have to watch people, many innocent, die in front of them for something they may not even agree to be fighting for.
Something that struck me was when the one man spoke about how he initiated fire on a woman walking nearby, who was holding something they believed to be a weapon, and how guilty he felt when he realized that he had just killed an innocent civilian. Not only did he shoot at her, but fifteen others did as well. It is things like this that make me despise war, and I am sure several soldiers feel the same way.
I think it is crazy how thee are more deaths from soldiers taking their own lives as a result of dealing with what they’ve seen in war, then in the war itself. The military lost 761 soldiers in combat but 817 had taken their own lives over the same period. I think that this is something that they don’t want the public to know for fear of people no still enlisting, but I think the public also doesn’t want to hear. They don’t want to discover that the people who are supposed to be their heroes are simply just men and these men cant handle the stresses that are put on them by war the same way that almost all of the general public wouldn’t be able to. They know that the problem has come from repeated combat deployments, and the only way to lower it would be to reduce the number of deployments per soldier, which could only be done if they expand army’s troop strength, or to reduce the number of soldiers sent off to war. They have apparently spent millions of dollars to getting these soldiers help who are deployed but clearly efforts haven’t been working. Research suggests that it takes a full 3 years of dwell time to relieve a solider of the stresses brought on but just one year of combat. The soldiers are trained to use controlled violence and aggression while suppressing their emotional reactions, which is simply inhuman and should not have to be done. The soldiers shouldn’t have to be either not allowed or embarrassed to display their emotions once they come home from war. Killing is not something that we as humans are programmed to do. These soldiers have been brainwashed to think that taking another persons life is okay and that is something that really scares me. We need to remember that yes these men are heroes, but they are not inhuman and they need more help then what they have been given in order to decrease this insanely high rate of suicide.
The military really has itself in a very tough spot regarding these suicide issues. They have to train young men, some of whom I would still consider kids, into emotionless, calculative killing machines. There is no way that can’t take a serious mental and emotional toll on a human being. Add the fact that you are far away from your family and friends and realistically may never be able to see them again and there is a recipe for disaster. War has become so much more of a complex machine in all facets. Back in the day, it was as simple as drafting a ton of men, and teaching them to kill the enemy. I remember in the video we watched a few weeks ago about Post-traumatic stress from the war, one of the victims of PTSD said, “50 years ago, if I was talking like I did, they would have taken me in the back and just shot me, no questions asked.” That’s the difference between war back then and war now. War now seems much more confusing, with more emotional consequences coming from both sides.
I think the biggest factor in these suicides is the broken relationships. Many of these men overseas only have the hopes of their wives and kids to get through the trying times that they are dealing with. If those are suddenly taken away from them for whatever reason, there hope is completely stripped away. It brings to mind a scene from Shawshank Redemption when Red says, “hope is a dangerous thing, hope can drive a man insane.” Beneath the cold, calculative, and killing attitude of a solider, there has to be a ton of hope, or else they would lose sight of why they’re fighting. As soon as something interferes with that hope, that is where the suicides happen. I don’t really think there is a way to prevent it from happening without compromising the quality of our military. I just think its one of those new side effects of a new, developing type of war that we are just going to have to put up with.
I believe that suicide rates are higher in soldiers that deploy due to many different factors that are present in different sociological factors. When you look at the average soldier, you don’t see the family man, the loving mother, or a kid that is just like yours. Instead you see someone that has given their life to protect our freedoms. They have given the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that we are safe, our country remains the way it is, and that our life is undisturbed by dangers. But I believe as a society we lose sight of the fact that these soldiers are people, real people, and not just some trained unemotional super hero that will protect our freedoms at the drop of a hat. When a soldier deploys overseas there is a lot of stress associated with that deployment. For one year the solider is taken away from their loved ones, they miss out on birthdays, and they basically lose a year of "normal" life and spend time in a war zone in which any day could be their last.
When a soldier is in a war zone, they will see and do many things that the average person will never experience in their lifetime. Each day becomes a life or death struggle, and could potentially end with the solider having to kill an enemy, lose a close friend, or learn of something bad happening at home. These are unavoidable, and when halfway around the world fighting in a war there is no quick fix. You can't simply pick up a phone whenever you want, or go and personally take care of problems that arise. Most of these soldiers are often facing multiple deployments which make these problems so much worse in the long run.
The government is now trying to combat these problems by limiting the length of time a soldier is deployed, suicide prevention classes, and availability of mental health experts to help prevent suicidal and destructive behavior. It seems as if we, society, just want to turn a blind eye to this problem but we must remember that soldiers are people that are placed in high stress environments. The mental issues that they face should and cannot be overlooked; it is a very real problem that needs to be fixed.
That video really hit me hard, as I’m sure it did for most of my peers. For a little while, probably about seven or eight years ago, I was thinking about joining our military. I have two cousins who have served overseas (one is about to go back for his second tour of duty), and I’ve always looked up to them. When I told my brother I was thinking about joining, he simply said, “What if you die?” That knocked that idea out of my head pretty quickly. I don’t want to die. But that video showed me that there are way worse things war can do to you. Most of the soldiers who came back with PTSD (or experienced it while deployed) probably would rather die than experience the shit they have to go through with PTSD. I say that because so many of those soldiers eventually take their own lives. So it’s obviously really fucking hard to go through what they’ve gone through, and be okay with it. And to me, the way the military deals with these problems is cowardly. Sure, they “offer help”, but do they really? These soldiers are obviously going through some crazy shit, and they’re expected to just act like nothing happens. And if they don’t act like nothing happens, and they speak up, they’re called cowards and they become an outcast. That’s pretty fucked up if you ask me. I understand that’s the way the United States military has always been – “holier than thou” – and if you don’t like it, too bad…
War is fucking crazy. Luckily, no one that I have ever known to go to war has died, although a few people have been seriously wounded. But this video definitely got me thinking, what if they HAD died? What if my cousin, who is a father of four, died in Afghanistan? How could the military and the government justify his death? What could they possibly say to the mother of his children that would make his death ‘alright’? I could never imagine trying to explain to kids that their dad is dead because we are fighting a war over OIL and MONEY. Is that really more important than human life? I think we lose sight of the human cost of war sometimes.
The video that we watched is definitely very powerful. In the beginning of the video when the soldier told the story about shooting down the civilian woman, I could not believe it. I can not imagine what it would be like for him to get on with the war after that. And to see the woman reaching for a white flag, that is so sad. I can definitely see how this war is so psychological. Having to witness so much death, and to actually cause someone else’s death is bound to leave some emotional scars. I think that most people probably do not even put two and two together to see and really understand the effects of war on the soldiers. It would be really hard to go right back into your life the way it was before you went to war. It is not like a person can just go home and forget about all of the horrible things they saw while away. I can understand the returning soldiers feeling that no one can understand them and what they are going through or dealing with. Also none of this is easy to talk about. So it makes sense for a person to come back a little different. I think that this is all so hard and sad. I know that I could not be a soldier, and yet here are all of these everyday people going through these life changing experiences. I would not even begin to know how to help a returning soldier. The one part of the video when the soldier said that he felt that he let the country down, his friends and family down, that was so intense. That would be such a heavy weight to carry, when he really did all that he could do or was told to do. That is not a let down at all, but here is this man feeling like he let everyone down. It is very disheartening that these soldiers who are out there for us and the country are coming back with such devastating effects, like PTSD and other psychological issues.
This video was really interesting. You don’t realize how stressful it is for soldiers to adjust to life once they come back from war and are expected to lead a life as if nothing has ever happened. These soldiers are trained to basically be killing machines and they are trained emotionally to kill without thinking. This is an unnatural reflex to anyone, so imagine being told to kill and not rationally think about the act you just committed. I thought the story about the man that killed the woman who he thought was carrying a bomb especially touching. It showed that these soldiers are real people with real feelings who have to cope with the burdens of what they have done. He explains how everything spiraled after he returned home from Iraq and how he started to drink and become violent when he was home. The story of him being at a bar and referring to himself as a “pitbull or shark” shows how really animalistic these men have come from war. It’s really sad how all these men were forced to bottle up these intense feelings for so long and how scary it is when they hit without warning. It is frightening what they will do for example commit suicide because they do not want to live with their immense physiological stress anymore. I don’t think you can really know unless you have been through it. From watching this video I am able to understand more how these soldiers are dealing with the aftermath, but I really can’t even begin to imagine the burden they must live with day to day. It is disturbing the rates of how many men and woman have committed suicide because of this burden. It is even more disturbing that their families were unknowing of how these people felt. I think that more attention to be put towards this obviously huge problem that is happening. I don’t think anyone is able to come home and start living a completely normal life and not deal with any physiological effects. That is never the case. The thing is that every single soldier goes through experiences and sees things that none of us should ever have to see. There is a generations of people from this war that are going to have to deal with very serious post traumatic stress syndrome.
The video we watched in class was extremely powerful. It makes one wonder how anyone can come back from combat without Post-traumatic Stress Disorder – and by my estimation, they can’t. Every person I know who has come back from war has PTSD in some form or another, maybe not to the degree of having black outs or hallucinations, but certainly they have trouble sleeping, nightmares, and shorter tempers. What I was unaware of was how the military treats its veterans. Most soldiers I know, even once they have left the service, still regard the military with an almost religious reverence, so how could they hold so dear an institution which ostracizes them for a disease which it inflicts?
I vaguely remember hearing of the “cowardice” trial, but never knew very much about it. It seems that the military is still operating on a very old set of standards. The fact of the matter is you do not create healthy or efficient soldiers when you cast off their mental health problems. The military is an institution that does seem behind the current time (how could it have taken THIS long to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”), and one would hope that it would soon take seriously the needs of its employees – no just formally (as we saw mental health personnel in combat areas), but practically as well. No soldier should be called a coward for needing help.
Most importantly, the suicides of these young men and women should be preventable. To abandon soldiers in the hour of need is deplorable. When a family sees a soldier beginning to fall apart, they should have somewhere to turn. One father mentioned that his son was concerned because he believed that V.A. was a part of the military, and his sons counseling would be reported. This should be the farthest thing from the mind of a young serviceman in need. The combination of PTSD, no one to turn to, the fear of retribution if one seeks help and the bumpy transition to civilian life can so easily lead to suicide, and with such a large budget, the military should find a way to help those who have devoted so much.
Throughout history, many of our wars have been for clear cut causes. It's easier to be willing to give up your life if it's for a specific cause. World War 2 and WW1 were against a clearly aggressive German nation that was sweeping through Europe. The Civil War was fought by the North (partially) in order to abolish slavery, the Revolutionary War was fought to gain independence from England. However, beginning with Vietnam and Korea, this started to change. These wars seemed avoidable and unnecessary. There was no legitimate cause for fighting, no noble idealism. Soldiers began to see war's ugliness even more clearly than in the past, as they were able to look past the lies of glory and idealism placed by politicians and generals. War is an attempt at justifying the taking of another man's life. Killing is still killing, and regardless of the reasons they do it, its going to psychologically damage the soldiers.
The military also doesn't adequately prepare soldier's for the act of killing psychologically, although they prepare them in every other way. They attempt to make soldiers dehumanize the enemy, to make it seem like they aren't taking a life when they pull a trigger. But although this may help soldiers perform kill during battle, it doesn't prepare them to cope with the action later on. This is whats so damaging, and why so many soldier's have difficulty adjusting after war.
“From the invasion of Afghanistan until last summer, the U.S. military had lost 761 soldiers in combat there. But a higher number in the service — 817 — had taken their own lives over the same period.” This is quite a shockingly number, but the statistic in itself brings to the table evidence that proves something about suicide that we have long since talked about. The fact that there are strings outside of our control affecting our thoughts, feelings, and actions. It also hints at the fact that there is something fundamentally wrong with the military for suicide is not something that normal healthy individuals do. So what is truly causing these things to occur? Well for one, I think the system of the military is not providing an environment that is beneficial to these soldiers. For example, in the video we watched in sociology one of the correspondents spoke about how the military never directly used the word kill or killing in any of its literature. I mean how can you truly train soldiers to be ready for war when you're not addressing the main goal of fighting, which is clearly to kill?
In my honest opinion the military training needs to be more "sociological" in its intent because they are socializing soldiers incorrectly in that they are trying to unify soldiers but don’t “repair” them for normal life. There are high suicide rates for both military situations, soldiers getting deployed and not getting deployed. Blaming the problem entirely on posttraumatic stress syndrome is only one factor in the whole scheme of things. There are definitely factors that we do not understand right now, but it’s clear that something needs to be done about it. I think another main problem with the military today is that there isn't this overall feeling of patriotism like there has been in older military involvements. Which would definitely have its affect on the psyche of its soldiers. They are now entering the military for other reasons, like financial reasons and not truly wanting the military experience. I mean some people can kill and some cannot, I just feel as if a lot of people in the military today are there for financial reasons which doesn’t make them any closer to being able to kill.
I was extremely moved and interested at the video we watched in class about the soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder. I was especially taken aback by the story of Jeff, the soldier who came home and developed an alcohol problem, isolated himself from his family, and then eventually took his own life. I had heard stories about such things happening before, but I guess the message never really hit me until literally seeing a personal story of someone who went through it and took their own life as a result of it. I have many different feelings after seeing that video. I wonder, why has our government really not done anything for these men, and why is there such a stigma for getting medical help when you need it? The men in the video needed the help, yet most of the time they explained how they were afraid to ask for it out of fear of being extremely stigmatized and put down. I felt so bad for these men. It's almost as if the military is de-humanizing their own people, and not taking into consideration what the war can do to someone mentally, not just physically. It's actually extremely scary. In my opinion, the mental wounds of war should be taken just as seriously if not more seriously than a physical wound. It boggles my mind that a government with so much technology, money, and information should be so behind when it comes to mental disorders and especially after seeing so many men suffer from PTSD, still doing nothing about it. I fear for friends that I know who are going to be deployed in the future. One of my best friends is currently in NAPS, the Navy boot camp, and will eventually be deployed as a soldier in the war. Will I never know the same Josh as I know now as a result? Will he develop such a strong mental reaction to the war? Will the government help him if he needs it? I just hope someday that the government will truly be understanding of what a serious issue this is and will hopefully do something to stop anything like Jeff's story from happening again to someone else and their family.
The video we watched about PTSD really scared me. My boyfriend is in the Army, and I have been against his decision from the beginning. Since the beginning of the war, I’ve seen on the news or read about soldiers that come home and are psychologically or physically wounded and some don’t come home at all. I feel horrible for not supporting his career choice, but I’m scared to death to see him deploy. All it takes is for me to see him in his uniform or catch a glimpse of his dog tags to start crying. I’ve seen nothing but the bad side of the war, and I don’t know what I would do if something happened to him. Even seeing the death tolls of the war from various periods of time stops me in my tracks. War kills people, and does more damage than good. I know from experience that soldiers are taught to be tough. I hear the words “Army strong” all the time. When he puts on his uniform I see him as a different person, and he acts like it as well. He’s not the same sensitive, caring, and loving person he usually is. Before he left for training last summer, I had no idea who he was. He was making careless, hurtful decisions that weren’t rational and hurt the people that loved him the most. I was scared. He said that he was told before he left that he would have to sign his own will. I felt like signing his contract signed his life away. He became government property and would do whatever they told him to. It know the Army does a lot of good and that not everyone that joins the service gets hurt ( mentally or physically),but it doesn’t make me feel any better. I hate knowing he’s putting his life on the line for something as stupid as resources. Iraq isn’t much of a war anymore, it’s just waisting time and money and getting more people killed.
The video we watched in class was informative, but nothing that I had not seen before. Throughout my years in high school, we had assemblies about suicide, and these assemblies always touched on some sort of aspect of PTSD in the military. My father is a subscriber to Time magazine, where the article is from, but it’s not the first time I’ve read an article from Time about suicide in relation to the military. The video we watched did shed some light on what our troops see, experience, and act out overseas. But the hardest thing that our soldier’s deal with is what to do with what they’ve seen; do they internalize it, most do, do they talk about it, most won’t, or do they just leave it over there and try and carry out their regular lives back home, most try but few succeed.
I had always contemplated joining the military while I was in high school, but one of the biggest obstacles in my way, was my fear of PTSD. I well knew what the consequences of seeing some serious shit, excuse my language, over there would do to you. It honestly scared the living crap out of me, even to points where I would just give up thinking about joining. But the saving grace that re-assured me was that my father, had served in the United States Navy, and he turned out to be a fine person. You may say that the Navy doesn’t see any combat, or any other excuse, but you never know they are all cooked up on a boat, for months on end. I finally made my decision earlier this semester, when I joined the ARMY ROTC here on campus. I knew the decision I made took a lot of courage from my inner being, because I am signing that I will serve 8 years for the United States government. One saving grace that may slightly help me, pending my deployment after I graduate is that, I am a nursing major. Most nurses, to my knowledge serve in hospitals behind the front lines, which is good because I will not see very much combat, I will just see the effects of combat on our troops. I hope to be deployed to Landstuhl, Germany which houses a very large medical facility, which is the first stop back from the Middle East. But there is always a chance that I may not get my deployment choice, and I will have to be deployed to the Middle East in a hospital, where I will see severe combat related injuries, so PTSD will honestly affect me. It’s always in the back of my mind that PTSD will affect me, but hopefully my inner strength will let me revail.
This movie had a tremendous effect on me, and my views of soldiers coming home from todays’ wars. I had heard about soldiers coming home and the transition being difficult, but I only thought it was short-term and was not that big of a deal. Watching this movie has opened my eyes to how big of an effect war truly is on our soldiers. The fact that from the time the soldiers invited Afghanistan until last summer, the U.S. military had lost 761 soldiers in combat, but 817 in the soldiers in the service have taken their own lives over the same period. That is insane! Clearly there is a problem when this surge in suicides, which have risen five years in a row, is not really being solved. Of course it does not help that Soldiers feel as though they are failures and weak if they go seek treatment.
In sociology class we learned that soldiers are already predisposed to committing suicide compared to others because of what they have seen and been through. According to the article soldiers in combat increases fearlessness about death and the capability for suicide. With the combination of combat exposure and ready access to guns can be very lethal to ANYONE contemplating suicide. About half of soldiers who kill themselves use weapons, and the figure rises to 93% among those deployed in war zones. ALSO It is interesting to me that Ritchie pointed out in January that there are "higher rates of mental-health problems and marital problems for multiple deployers" yet soldiers are still being deployed to war multiple time and the anxiety of when they will be deployed probably does not help!
Personally I really do not believe that there are enough resources and outlets for soldiers that are returning home from war. Soldiers should be well informed that of what they might go through is normal and their family should also be well informed in the signs and symptoms’ of PTSD.
In order for our soldiers to get better they need all the support they can get, that includes from their commands.
To me the movie we watched in class on PTSD in the military really hit home. I have been in the military for over 3 years and one of the main concerns with troops coming home is how difficult it can be for them to re-adjust to life outside of the battle field. We are constantly having classes on how to pick up on signs of depression and post deployment issues. It really affects me and touches me because these are my brothers pretty much my family coming home carrying all this baggage from war. We recently had a deployment come home. One of our main concerns was to make sure that our men were doing ok and getting back into the motion of life. I think that the people of America need to start taking more actions to help the men and women that serve our country. To me it shouldn’t matter if you agree with the war or not or if you agree with what the government says.
. The men and women volunteer to serve our country so that the people who don’t want to don’t have to. So we should help those people and support them in whatever way we can. Most of us have no idea the stress that these people have to go through and the memories they have to live with. I think that we should take more responsibility and help our service members out by being more involved when they return home from a tour. We can’t just abandon our service members. We can’t do what we did during Vietnam. To me there is no reason why we shouldn’t help out our service members, they all have given us something and some of them have given everything they can give. So in their time of need the people of America need to give just a little bit to help those that have given us all so much no matter your beliefs or what your political views are our military members need our help. We have a responsibility to help our men in women in need.
The truth is that going back to war or being repeatedly exposed to the effects of war, even if not in the war zone, has the cumulative effect that produces PTSD. The Army is just now approaching the 2 year "dwell time" that was their goal, but scientific studies show that a soldier needs 3 years down time for every year of deployment, to let the symptoms subside. Many commanders in the military have a "show up, shut up, do your job" attitude for their soldiers, especially on the Reserve and Guard side. The burden of repeated deployments appears to be a contributing factor to the rising suicide rate among Army personnel. The surge in suicides, which have risen five years in a row, has become a problem for which the Army's highest levels of command have yet to find a solution, despite deploying hundreds of mental-health experts and investing millions of dollars.They are probably immensely depressed by the horrors they are facing daily. They are provided with no safe outlet for their emotional feelings and no outlet for their physical being. They probably feel they have only one viable option to escape the nightmares they face daily in their heads and in their physical environment. If faced with a daily living hell such as they endure, what would you do?
The problem with the military and the governments is that they treat soldiers like machines, that are programmed to do without question. The problem is that they are not machines, they are human. They think, feel and question everything, all the time, just like the rest of us.
The perfect soldier is one with no emotion no feeling and no remorse, but those people in reality don’t exist.
The current situation is at least looking like its improving. During the previous 8 years of the Bush-Cheney administration, Veterans Mental Health services were minimal to say the least. President Obama is actively working with the Veterans Affair organizations for proper funding and support for troops suffering from PSTD. Hopefully through these improvements, we can find a solution to these horrors.
PTSD is a terrible product of war that is almost unavoidable. Imagine being shipped to a completely different country across the world and being told to risk your life and put everything you have on the line to fight for something you may not even believe in. On top of that, soldiers are made to feel like any mental problems that may be associated with PTSD are weak and not to be talked about. This is what was talked about in the movie we watched during class by the Sargent. He was too worried about talking to a professional about his problems because he was too worried about how his men would look at him. When he finally did seek help his men did exactly what he expected and told him how much of a wuss or how they couldnt trust him anymore. This is the problem with our military and the problems with PTSD. Even if a soldier wants help and wants to talk, his/her peers drive him to keep quite about it. This just drives the PTSD and makes it worse.
War is an insane thing. No one can imagine it unless you experience the trauma and total mind screw up that it is. I feel the military should be more open to the idea of talking and solving their soldiers mental problems. Maybe if it was looked at in a different light.. like if the soldiers were told that by talking they could master their mind and in turn become super soldiers. Not only would they have the best abilities to fight their enemies with training, but they have the power over their minds and would be able to control their thoughts. Maybe if it was looked at differently PTSD could be easier to deal with.
I am not surprised that suicide is getting more and more common in the Military. As was discussed in the video, military culture is very alpha male oriented. No one wants to admit to being weak, and not being able to take the horror of war is not something that man soldiers are willing to talk about. All too often the casualties and injuries of war are only thought of in terms of bodily harm, however the mental effect that war has on soldiers can be just as, if not worse than bodily injuries. There are still not enough mental health programs for military soldiers, and until this problem is solved and soldiers are not afraid to talk about their experiences I fear that these suicide rates will just continue to rise. Other than suicide rates, soldiers can also become violent from PTSD, oftentimes blacking out and going back to their soldier instinct which could result in someone getting extremely hurt. In my home state of Colorado, a lot of soldiers go to Colorado Springs where a military base is located. There are constantly reports of violent fights and violent crime where soldiers are involved. After experiencing what they have experienced overseas in an active combat zone, I do not think the soldiers are at fault at all, but rather the military as a whole where it is taboo to seek mental health help. In some cases soldiers are even actively made fun of for this such as was demonstrated in the video. The emotional stress of war is only made worse by this mentality that the soldier must be a strong, fearless male. I think that everyone in the world would experience fear if they were shot at or almost killed as many soldiers are, and I do not think that they should be blamed for experiencing fear at these moments. Because the soldiers keep this bottled up, many end up exploding in either depression or rage and this is where we see these suicide rates increasing. Until soldiers are more comfortable and more easily able to seek help for this mental trauma, this problem will continue to escalate.
As a mental health professional in training, this is one of the things that we talk about the most – returning veterans suffer from post traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. Finding out this statistic however is shocking. It’s unfortunate because until a soldier exhibit symptoms for more than thirty days is it actually post traumatic stress disorder, until then it’s just acute stress disorder. Unfortunately there is no “magic pill” that can just make the recurring memories stop; it takes time and a lot of mental health counseling to get over it. I cannot think of a single soldier who has experienced trauma overseas that wants to come home and relive that same experience every single day.
One of the major reasons is also stigma. We have been talking in class of how the military brainwashes every single member into this one-way track of thinking, and one of the thoughts is that they are strong. To many soldiers, having a mental illness is a sign of weakness and they do not want to “shame the military” so they commit suicide. By not being around, they do not shame the military, and they would have rather died overseas.
It’s unfortunate, because over time and through talking with someone can overcome any mental illness. In my psychology class we watched a clip of George Carlin talking about how the word mental illness and post traumatic stress disorder has changed over the years from shell shock and morphed to post traumatic stress disorder. He said that the word itself changed the perspective of how people view it. By saying that a soldier has shell shock makes it seem okay as opposed to post traumatic stress disorder. Is it that the soldiers view the word describing what they have as more of a weakness than something like shell shock? I can completely believe it. Everyone is tortured in some way shape or form growing up for their clothes, body type, sexual preference, socioeconomic status, as well as others, why would people not be as cruel when it comes to a mental health disorder that they received from fighting for their country? They wouldn't.
This video did a great job of really hitting home and giving the viewers a deeper understanding of what is really going on with our soldiers. Being misled by the news and being reluctant to hear about unpleasant events, citizens are often unaware of the magnitude of an issue. It is unbelievable that more U.S. soldiers have died from taking their own lives than have died in combat in Afghanistan, which shows just how big of a problem war really is. It does not just end once the troops are home. When we think of war, we think of destruction and brutality. We see only the images that media, such as the news or movies, have depicted of the war. I cannot imagine seeing these images really happen right in front of me. It is no wonder that soldiers come home with post-traumatic stress disorder. It is a shame that more is not being done to give help to the soldiers who really need it. This lack of help seems to be due to the fact that people assume the soldiers will be fine once they return home and everything will go back to normal. Clearly, this is not the case.
It is difficult for anyone to really relate to the soldiers when they come back from the war. Even the closest of loved ones are rarely successful in consoling their soldier. This video proved that and made me upset that they rarely get help. I feel this is a video for everyone to watch because it makes one realize the effects of war other than the obvious bombing and other forms of mass murder. War is emotional just as it is physical, otherwise the soldiers would not need to be emotionally trained to kill another human being. A soldier could be the strongest in the entire army but if he is not emotionally prepared, he will not be able to fulfill his duties. Since most of us can do nothing to help the soldiers, we need to give out support. Instead of protesting the war, we need to have more support our troop campaigns. We are already in the war and there is nothing we can do about it, so the least we can do is show our support for clearly the many soldiers that need it. I am glad this video opened my eyes to this.
PTSD is a scary thing. It is scary to see how many soldiers suffer from this crippling disorder that has them in fear for a good part of their lives. It makes you think about how our military is runs things. Yes, they have many many programs trying to help these soldiers who suffer, but are they really effective? Sometimes. But some things cannot not be erased from the mind. Part of the military is taking away individuality so that the soldiers can become into within each other within their unit. The mentality that the military gives could be characterized as just a solider. That’s all they really see themselves as and I think this can be incredibly dangerous. You cannot take thing from a person that make them who they are, and this is just what the military does. I have considered joining the military and I am not completely against this tactic because it doe create a stronger working team that in the end is more likely to succeed. But what happens when the soldiers return home and they don’t have the sense of being part of a team that they had given everything up for, especially everything that they had been through together. I cannot imagine the stress that this would put on a person. There are so many words that descrtibe a soldier and the military all that deal with something bigger than oneself, because it is. But when you become alone again, the stress will get to you. I have talked to people with PTSD and I have no idea how they cope with it. I couldn’t imagine hearing a doorbell ring and jumping on the ground reminiscing about gunfire flying over your units head. The soldier really has nothing to fear, but there is sincere fear. This is hard for a person that has been told to be courageous and to do things for the greater good. Battling with the day to day struggles of PTSD can do more than just make you depressed and fearful, it can mentally cripple you for the rest of your life, and something needs to be done about it.
The video in class about the soldiers in Iraq was definitely eye opening and sad. Soldiers are constantly trained to defend their country and people, however, when they are thrown into war, they don’t know how they’ll react. No one does. Only those who have experienced war first hand truly know how it’s like to be caught in the middle of war. As citizens of the U.S., we don’t know what its like to be in war. We know that were in war, but we don’t truly feel the effects of it. In the video, the soldiers are trained to be tough and to hide signs of fear and weakness. This is evident in the different soldiers that were in the video. Many of them refused to believe they had a problem, because they feared what their fellow soldiers and sergeant would think about them. They feared to be thought of as incompetent or unsuited for war. For instance, one guy refused to believe he had a problem, after coming back from Iraq. His family could tell something had changed, and urged him to see someone, but he ultimately refused and resorted to suicide. The fate of this soldier really saddened and bothered me. I felt helpless for the soldier, because he was so self-conscious about what his unit would think about him. I can’t imagine the psychological state these soldiers come home with after being in war. People aren’t trained to see gruesome deaths and killings. People aren’t trained to kill. And so, I can’t fathom the different emotions these soldiers experience after getting back from war. As Americans we want to believe our soldiers are strong both physically and mentally, that nothing can break them. However, that isn’t the case. They are only human, and humans aren’t trained to kill, and witness death first hand. These soldiers basically live in fear everyday, but they hide it, which probably puts a big burden upon their shoulders. This shows that the military should definitely take the mental state of these soldiers coming back from war more seriously.
The video we watched in class this week definetely showed war from a different side most Americans are used to; as we talked about the militainment side of the industry and medias outlook on war alot of the mainstream stuff focuses on how war is good and patriotic and how it benefits everyone, basically all that bullcrap, etc; and this is the exact opposite of what anyone in the military wants to be acknowleded with. Post tramautic stress disorder is a mental disease, which some could construe as even worse than a physical one because when one is affected by such a large ordeal it can begin to take over one's life. As we saw in the video the different veterans and returning soldiers and how they all reacted to comeing back into real life after being out on the battlefield, where they were trained to basically not think based off of their brain but their instincts, it was quite crazy at first to think of the "healthy" unharmed military men returning and in fact turning out to be more harmed than imaginable. The stastistics given in the video about the amount of PTSD and mental health tolls on anyone that has been deployed gave a new perspective on the outreach and overall diminishing effects from war. There were 2 main points that bugged me in the video: the harsh and painful reality for each and every one of those men that were interviewed, and that the military branches totally ignored, if not denied that anything was wrong with these people (the examples of the commanders and sergeants and such disowning these men as weaklings). The main way to deal with such a big problem is to not deny it or turn your head away from it, but embrace it and try and alleviate the issue; instead of condemning these victims as not worthy of still being soldiers, give them the medical help and closure they need to help them feel better, dont make the matter worse. All of the guys in the video had serious problems acclimating and none of them ever did 100% of the way get back to normal, because the way they are trained changes them as a person. The one boy (whose parents said they noticed it the first day) said he wanted to be numb because they did not feel in the war, they just obeyed and followed orders… which is why many of them turn to the drink or violence at home, it gives them ways to feel nothing as they were accustomed to. The man whose girlfriend separated from him, went out everynight, and even turned up to his siblings graduation drunk, eventually killed himself because of how war changed him… this is one of many similar proceedings because it is estimated more soliders take their own lives than die in combat as of the recent wars. Only a larger sign to change the way somethings are done.
My hometown is located near the Walter Read Army Medical Center, the primary army hospital for injured troops. Every time an injured troop needs surgery, the army will ship them back to the states and hospitalize them at Walter Reed. This includes all injuries, including brain damage, burns, fractured bones, and more commonly, amputations. The sight of amputated soldiers is far too common in my town. Once the soldiers have recovered enough in Walter Reed, there families pay them a visit. During these visits, the soldiers usually visit the local shops, movie theaters and other venues, just to get there mind off their problems. It is there, in the downtown area, where I see these soldiers all the time. Most are amputees and are being pushed around in a wheel chair by a girlfriend or family member. The soldiers are obviously from outside the city, so they stand out even more. The utter grief and confusion creates a facial characteristic it seems many of them cannot change. Most are young men with their heads still shaven. Seeing these soldiers so frequently is one of the main contributing factos towards my negative attitude towards war, especially the ones the United States is in today. The troops are able bodied men, fighting for a cause many of them don’t even understand. Then they return to the U.S, still in shock from battle, and they have no plan. They have no idea what to do next, where they will work, whether their family will still stick with them. It’s awful, and it happens all the time. While the obvious physical damage will be permanent with the injured troops, the psychological and emotional stress will also be permanent, even among those troops that were not physically harmed during wartime. “Blackouts” are very common among troops, and they are becoming more frequent as more army men return home. Blackouts are moments of complete loss of control in which the troop reenacts war experiences. This can mean storming houses, fighting the enemy, screaming, etc., any type of event in war, recreated in the troops mind, and reenacted in real life. For example, troops who have developed anger issues have experienced fits of rage in which they do not remember. This type of emotional trauma is obviously more frequent than actually realized. Many troops don’t even recognize the disorder, and if left untreated, can cause serious damage to their lives. The judicial system barely recognizes post traumatic stress disorder in court, especially in violent crimes. The issue is severe, and the consequences of leaving it unaddressed have yet to prove themselves. Most soldiers are very young, and they are throwing their lives away when they suffer from these types of traumas.
This video is extremely tragic because of the amount of lives it effects on a yearly basis. Just imagine what it feels like to take the life of another individual who has never done anything to harm you or agitate you directly. Having to constantly see the pictures of peoples families who lost their dad or mom with one pull of the trigger from your gun. That is some pretty heavy stuff that lies on the back of individuals that come back from places of conflict. Ptsd or otherwise known as post traumatic stress disorder is one of the worst thing that a soldier has to live with for their entire lives. I personally believe there is a fix to help returning veterans heal or at least deal with Ptsd. My fix is to give counseling to each and every soldier who has returned from fighting in the war. This will help in that the individual soldier can feel more like he is not alone and he is not the only one that this affected. The reason I feel the government would not do this is because of the fact that if every soldier gets counseling all that is going to do is raise the amount of money taxpayers will have to fork over to help soldiers. While family members who are affected by this disorder will agree this would be a great resource that should be available to returning veterans. The way that I look at it is the fact that say someone lost an arm in the war or for a better example they broke an ankle as soon as they got there and had to be sent home. The ankle will heal. But then take someone who had to shoot a child because he was holding a gun at him. There is no way that the person is going to be ok with themselves after doing that. But if counseling was put into place then the person would possibly feel differently and hopefully start to get back to the routine that he or she had before they went to war. So basically what I am saying is I feel the emotional toll the war takes on an individual is sometimes greater than the physical toll.
From the invasion of Afghanistan until last summer, the U.S. military had lost 761 soldiers in combat there. But a higher number in the service — 817 — had taken their own lives over the same period. This stat is beyond staggering, the fact that we are in a war where the objective is supposed to be to save American lives, and we are instead losing the lives of the very people protecting us. Throughout history soldiers have come back from war acting differently, whether it was World War One, World War Two, or the Vietnam War there is something that changes within a soldier’s personality before he is sent off to war and after he comes back. Only recently has the problem been coined post-traumatic stress disorder by people in the medical field. In the military this mental issue is seen as a weakness and a sign of not being man enough for the army, so for many years the military believed that it was in the best interests of the soldiers to send them back out to war in order to get used to the unimaginable images soldiers must see on a daily bases. The problem is worsened by the manpower challenges faced by the service, because new research suggests that repeated combat deployments seem to be driving the suicide surge. The United States army is one of the largest in the world, without question, but in order to fix this epidemic almost it needs to get larger. Post-traumatic stress disorder is not something you can get over within a day or two, it takes weeks to months to get over (maybe even years), so for soldiers who suffer from this mental disorder there is lots of time that needs to pass and lots of counseling needs to be done in order for them to recover fully. That means that the time spent at home between deployments, for soldiers, is vital to the recovery and needs to be expanded which means that there would be less soldiers in the battle field and more at home. This is why the military either needs to expand or lessen the amount of troops it sends overseas. Regardless of actions taken outside of the battle front, the only way this issue is going to be overcome is if the mentality on the battle front changes. Terrorism has become such a big part of our everyday lives and the impact is world wide.
Soc 001
After reading this article and watching the video in class, I am heartbroken for these soldiers. It kills me how the entire system is one corrupted pattern. These soldiers are told to bottle up their feelings and not show emotions, and therefore feel terrorized to ever talk about them. Their psychological issues get so deeply conflicted and yet their leaders are telling them that is weak to even discuss the issues. These men already have to deal with issues that human beings shouldn't ever go through. The idea of stripping one's identity and becoming a numb figure is something that is traumatizing within itself. If it isn't bad enough to deal with the horrors of war, it is awful that these men have to still deal with their fear when they get home. It's something obviously most people can't understand unless they have been to war, and that probably terrifies them. Now that these soldiers are starting to commit suicide, it makes me sick to think that we are doing this to our own men. I acknowledge that with war one needs to be prepared to deal with killing and seeing all that is going down, but if it is tearing these soldiers apart we need a new mentality. These men won't speak up because they don't want to be seen as weak or crazy and kept in the psychological center any longer than they need to. Our message needs to be that is ok and even encouraged to go seek help when feeling any distress. Sociology uncovers the paradox in that these men who are suppose to be stripped of all feelings are the ones who end up with the most psychological problems. And although there is help for those people, it obviously looked down upon to ever get that help. The social pressures are beyond measurable and make times of war not only hard the soldiers that are away, but for the soldiers who are able to come home to their normal lives. I am happy to see that we are finally taking into account not only the physical but psychological wounds that soldiers undertake and hopefully will help make their lives easier in the future.
We are sending thousands upon thousands of soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq every year; as well as having them deployed to numerous remote locations all throughout the world, and the government doesn’t feel these soldiers will be affected in any possible way? I’m shocked…many of the soldiers don’t just complete one tour of duty; some have anywhere between three to five tours before their contract runs out. Anybody who is exposed to the front line fighting, or even stationed in a heavy war zone is significantly affected and their mentality is not usually the same as when they first arrived off the plane. They are fighting everyday for their life. It’s not just some kind of simulation that can be controlled, similar to what is used in basic training. Every soldier has to be ready and alert at all times because it’s just not considered a mistake that can be mended the next day or in a week, these “mistakes” can cost soldiers their own lives as well as their fellow officers lives.
Could you imagine if you made a mistake, and the direct consequence of that mistake compromises the safety of a fellow combat squad? Worse yet, could you fathom if it that were to cost your best friend’s life? These actions and mistakes are ones that the soldiers will have to live with all of their lives. The images will continuously be flashing back in their head, but instead of it just being a bad dream, it would have been a past memory that affects the soldiers lives, and also their loved ones that are waiting for them to return home safely. Could you be the one to tell a grieving widow who is pregnant that she will never get a chance to see her husband again? And that child will never have an opportunity to meet his father.
We don’t hear about these facts and figures, which correlates the increased suicide rates among soldiers compared with PTSD. Some memories can never be forgotten by the mind, the only way it could ever be permanently forgotten is to take one’s own life.
Killing another human being. That is one of the ‘skills’ a soldier is taught at boot camp before departing to a foreign nation. If this doesn’t tell you why soldiers are fucked up in the head after going to battle then I don’t know what will. Watching your best friend die. There are very few of us not in the military that we can say the person most near and dear to our heart we watched die. They say that history repeats itself but war is always constant, and it’s true. The United States has worked for 300 hundred years to become the worlds largest super power and believe me we are not going to stop now.
A soldier’s life isn’t worth much to the government, just a casualty of war. It’s quite sad when you think about it, how low we value our soldiers. It’s one of those things where the soldiers get into the government military and then realize how corrupt it is.
PTSD is a result of all of these factors coming together in a dramatic realization. There is nothing more brutal than war. There is nothing more detrimental to a person’s mental health than killing someone. The life that a soldier lives over seas is drastically different that of what they live here. The numbers don’t lie, of course suicide rates are going up because the military is a bureaucracy and they have one agenda, to get soldiers in perform a mission and shuttle new soldiers in as fast as they can. They do not want to have to be accountable for the soldiers who come home.
There are a few factors that case this jump in suicide rates that differ from other wars such as Vietnam or World War II. Anomie is sweeping over our nation like a disease. People do not just come home from war and meet up with a girl and have lots of babies. Its not like that anymore, most of the population openly disagrees with the war but have little say, or don’t care to say their opinion. Secondly, people just really don’t care one way or the other; if I don’t do it someone will mentality. Lastly, soldiers are sent back to the US kicked back out into the society and expected to be regular functioning member of society. No. There not. There changed now. The military has to implement more patient based help. Not help that will just ‘satisfy’ a requirement for release. Serious help that will help the soldier recover. Then the next step is to teach them about sociology.
I agree with the intro that Sam gave us on the soldiers taking their own lives is just something that the public does not want to know. I have many friends that have done tours or multiple tours over seas and I can say that they are not the same. The mental toll that war does on a soldier is something that I hope that I never have to experience. I am one hundred percent thankful for their dedication in fighting for our but I also am one hundred percent remorseful for the amount of psychological pain that they are experiencing. It is extremely sad to see my friends when I go home and see that they are almost brainwashed. They are definitely a lot quieter and will drink more than they should when we go out. War is something that will never go away but is something that is much more damaging than just taking lives of soldiers. It is taking their souls as well. The movie that we watched in class really touched me. I was almost in a depressing mood after hearing all these stories of suicide and/or thoughts of suicide. The part of the movie that really bothered me was the story of the marine that was called a coward not only by his superior but also all over the media. This man was just being honest and wanted to try to fix his situation for he could not only be a stronger solider, but also have a stronger mind to be a strong person in general. I understand that they need to be tough on their soldiers in order for our military to be successful, but I felt that was a little to extreme. These soldiers are almost not being treated as humans, but as brainwashed killing machines. I feel bad for these soldiers and give support to any vet or current soldier that I meet or know. It is truly sad that these soldiers finally return home to be safe and free as a citizen, and can’t really get back to their normal lives because of the psychological toll that they have taken.