Suicide surpassed war as the military's leading cause of death

[«§Harry§»]

Suicide surpassed war as the military's leading cause of death
Military Intelligence
Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY 4:27 p.m. EDT October 31, 2014

War was the leading cause of death in the military nearly every year between 2004 and 2011 until suicides became the top means of dying for troops in 2012 and 2013, according to a bar chart published this week in a monthly Pentagon medical statistical analysis journal.

For those last two years, suicide outranked war, cancer, heart disease, homicide, transportation accidents and other causes as the leading killer, accounting for about three in 10 military deaths each of those two years.

Transportation accidents, by a small margin, was the leading cause of military deaths in 2008, slightly more than combat.

The fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan accounted for anywhere from one out of three deaths in the military — in 2005 and 2010 — to more than 46 percent of deaths in 2007, during the height of the Iraq surge, according to the chart.

More than 6,800 troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11 and more than 3,000 additional service members have taken their lives in that same time, according to Pentagon data.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/nation/2014/10/31/suicide-deaths-us-military-war-study/18261185/

 

[«§Harry§»]

“It blew me away, how effective it was,” “It was definitely the best treatment I’d ever had for my PTSD. It gave me my life back. It was like a burden being lifted off my back for the first time in years. I could feel. I could love. It helped me more than I can even put into words.”

“A good way to describe it is that I felt like I was in a cave, trying to get out, but I didn’t have any light,” “So I was just feeling around the walls, getting turned around, and getting even more lost. But with the MDMA sessions, it was like the therapist was my guide and the MDMA was a flashlight. With those resources, I could get out of the cave I’d been lost in for so long.”

Was this^ person involved in MAPS research? If we could cure these soldiers we should. They are our societies warriors and deserve better now that they are back from fighting.

The residue these soldiers return with has some dark consequences. I guess the greatest benefit would be in the first year for the type of problems they have. I had mild PTSD after living in very bad neighborhoods. After leaving the spontaneous shattering panic attacks were most severe for the first year. Today my problems are less bitter.

 

[neversickanymore]

This really says something about how war and its experience are not acceptable to many humans. I hope soon it is permanently removed from the human experience.

Tolerance of people who belive different things and want to live different lives is key to this. Ending Greed is another.

The power freaks are one more. I do not understand the fascination with power. The only power that has ever beckoned me is the power to live my life as I choose.

 

[«§Harry§»]

I comprehend that interpretation. Your are promoting very high ideals in saying life without war, without prejudice, without greed, and without power. I think I see your point with things like greed. The world you describe doesn't include humans. I mourn you if lust, prejudice, greed, and violence aren't (preferably small) parts of your life. If you lack these human imperfections then you also lack the beautiful imperfections of being human and the the self determination empowering choice.

I can't eliminate war. Sporting MAPS fixing broken warriors is possible. Perhaps if some of those once broken warriors are leaders in the future they'll have greater comprehension of what is going on with our society and direct our country towards accountability and away from constant war.

 

[lazylazyjoe]

The crazy thing is it's an all volunteer military here.

If you don't think you're capable of killing people or torturing people or having people try to kill you or seeing your friends mutilated and killed , why would you join?

 

[ATLL765]

The crazy thing is it's an all volunteer military here.

If you don't think you're capable of killing people or torturing people or having people try to kill you or seeing your friends mutilated and killed , why would you join?

They don't really mention people getting blown up and the horrors of war when they're recruiting. They play hard on it being like an athletic team/sport comparison and what young male didn't want to join the military at some point. They play on that to recruit people. All the war films, books, video games have implanted the idea that fighting in a war is something done by the best among us and will only bring you glory. This obviously is not the case, not to say those that fight aren't great people, but it's certainly not the romantic version of war portrayed in many mediums.

 

[spacejunk]

The crazy thing is it's an all volunteer military here.

If you don't think you're capable of killing people or torturing people or having people try to kill you or seeing your friends mutilated and killed , why would you join?

^ answer: poverty.
"Voluntary"...but not really.
A lot of people don't "choose" to go to war. It is in the best interests of the military industrial complex to have a working poor, or an 'underclass'. Cannon fodder.
Notice how expensive college education is in the USA?
And how enlisting will enable you to get an education, healthcare, a roof above your head? Social and economic inequality is - in many countries - the most effective recruiting tool there is.
A lesson learned from the Vietnam war; conscription breeds contempt and opposition.
When enlisting is "voluntary", the words on everybody's lips is "support the troops". When young people are getting drafted by random (especially in a bullshit war we have no business in being in), you get public resistance from the people getting called up to go, as well as their families, friends, loves ones.

Wars are fought by the poor for the rich.
It isn't glorious, and with very few exceptions, it sure ain't heroic either.
Especially when the poor bastards come home - traumatised, possibly injured and without the structure of army life. Not to mention the appalling things most soldiers have to see, witness and/or do.

Fucking sickening.

I can only imagine how bad it must be; especially when you're fighting a war with no possible "positive" outcome, no clearly defined purpose, no clearly defined enemy, in urban areas of poorly constructed homes housing civilian populations with high numbers of young children, using ammunition tipped with depleted uranium in the aforementioned civilian areas.
Being ordered to degrade and torture prisoners by your superiors, who - when that torture becomes public knowledge - put the blame back on the soldiers who were following their orders to begin with.
It's fucked.
Horrible. I'm not surprised by this at all, but it's still fucking sad.

 

[herbavore]

It is real and it breaks my heart: http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/742872-Suicide-is-my-only-option

We are all in this war. It goes far beyond and far deeper than any particular war involving two sides or three sides or fifteen sides. It is not a war of religions or resources or dogmas. It is a war within us, within our own minds and until we can see that and believe in the possibility of creating cultures aligned in peaceful coexistence rather than fear we will continue to send young men and women out to die uselessly. I disagree that we are doomed to being at war within ourselves because we are human. Perfection is not the goal, imagination is the goal. Right now we are living in a paradigm that squashes any attempt to move beyond the ignorance that has governed our species on such a massive scale for so long. But what if we had an entity in Washington the size and scope of the Pentagon that was devoted to peace rather than war? What if the monstrosity that the NSA is building to house the machines that gather information on our every move were not being built for the purpose of selling us delusions or having control over us but for the purpose of helping us? A giant think tank churning out solutions? I'm sure you are expecting me to break into song any minute here with John Lennon ringing in my ears and you would not be far off the mark. "You may call me a dreamer but I'm not the only one" is a lyric that has sustained me through many years of believing that an end to all wars is possible. We do, each of us and collectively, create reality.

On a separate note: my husband, a Vietnam veteran, has a terminal cancer that is recognized by the V.A. as being caused by exposure to Agent Orange. Facing his own mortality he is tortured most by a feeling that he should have resisted participating in what he considered to be an immoral war. He was a poor kid from inner city Detroit, drafted during the escalation after Tet and without the benefit of exposure to the mostly middle class subculture that supported draft resistors. I wish he could turn his anger and pain to the complex machine that keeps all this going, but instead he turns it on himself. He is 69 years old and he has lived a life of hard work for his family and community and for the planet. But in his mind there is no making up for the two years he spent as a young man in a hell not of his making. So many young veterans are coming back today facing the same thing. War is abstract to those that are not in direct contact.

Support MAPS and support the Wounded Warrior Project and imagine yourself and your world healing and at peace. Even one imagination engaged in this endeavor makes an impact.