Veteran Suicides

[Carmen813]

This is an article that discusses an issue that I care about deeply. I thought I'd share it because it might help someone. I know lots of folks here are politically involved on both ends of the spectrum and it might help to understand why services to Veterans are important. It does a good job of covering some of the warning sides of suicide and different approaches to helping Veterans. This can help you learn some of the risk factors that exist.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswe...ord-on-the-epidemic-of-military-suicides.html

Veterans are some of the best our country has to offer and we're losing these folks at a rate of one every 90 minutes. I'm going to refrain from posting too many replies since I don't want to get drawn into a debate about this issue, but I do have a significant amount of knowledge about resources available to help Veterans and their families. If you have questions feel free to P.M. me.

 

[Craig234]

War tends to turn something man has and should have a natural revulsion to - killing strangers - into a neatly packaged product to sell, 'protecting our freedom by heros'.

When it was found that revulsion was causing even men in war to be reluctant to shoot at the enemy, training was devised to get them to shoot bypassing rational reluctance.

The effects of that training and the violence aren't that well understood, other than that it's been effective with shoot rates going from a fraction to about 100%.

It's all too easy for a morally lazy society to accept the justifications and excuses for war, in the name of 'glory' and 'power' and whatever benefits.

If we in the US cannot resist the temptations with our 'advanced society' and free political debate - a resistance we actually had before WWI and WWII - how can we ask other countries not to engage in wrongful war, with their commonly greater poverty and lower education and less political control by the people?

We need a stronger resistance to war.

That doesn't mean not to have 'peace through strength' - "weakness" would invite danger, but we're not in any danger of that anytime soon. We're in the territory of appraching the greatest government tyranny over mankind with the creation of space-based weaponry, the corruption of our politics by 'the military-industrial complex', the excessive fortunes spent on a 'bright, shiny military' whose very cost demands its use, as pointed out by Madeline Albright or by Jefferson's saying it's a menace to democracy.

I'd like to see more study of the effects of the training on troops, more treatment and care, and more political education to warn against the excessive spending on and use of military force, to build a healthy culture in our society closer to the UN charter making aggressive war illegal.

Save234

 

[monovillage]

Bumping a Veteran thread.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

I would also like to see a very high employment rate for veterans in this country when they return.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Sad to say Carmen but veterans are useful while they are needed and we want to forget them as quickly as we can when we're done with them. They'll be trotted out as reasons against war or examples of heroism, but that's just using them for a point. The people themselves can FOAD. I see this too and have more than enough cause to understand what happens to good people in bad situations. They are disposable people. I utterly reject that notion.

 

[LunarRay]

The book Rachel Maddow wrote, "Drift", is a pretty good effort to describe that we have these wars that are so far removed from us so that we can stomach them... We don't see the body bags lined up or the insanity of it all like in Vietnam. We don't have a draft cuz that would reduce the support for the wars when the affluent get to go and defend their bit of it all.

Folks come back with all manner of 'issues' and some with none at all. But that is not the issue as I see it.... It is the WHO went and WHO stayed home all cozy in their homes and jobs.... I'd not mind seeing the folks who send us to war having their kids going too... share the opportunity to all citizens... make it front page news every day.... Show the coffins... Scream from every corner and let the entire country be part of the insanity of war.

Never forget that when you sent a person to war... it don't end when they arrive home... A new war begins... a civil war of sorts...