Jess thank you for your comment. I have a question; might there be instances of death on the battlefield that were because of the desire to commit suicide?

multiple deployments are one of the problems

I support our troops 100%, but I worry about the increasing number of troops that the Bush Administration admitted, who would have otherwise been deemed "unfit" for duty...for these Middle Eastern, Empire-building missions.

Too few troops enlisted, based upon the unpopularity of the first war and the illegality of the second.

I realize that this is not the direct focus of why many troops are struggling, but it is important.

My heart goes out to all serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Know that civilians are fighting endlessly for your safe return.

Again, most of the soldiers who commit suicide HAVE NOT DEPLOYED! And most were never identified by mental health professionals as having problems.

It is ridiculous to blame the war or anti-depressants for all the suicides.

Interestion but some soldiers have guilt and depression for not being deployed especially if someone close has been killed in action or has committed suicide on return of a deployment

Having spent the better part of their young lives conceiving, gestating, feeding, raising and educating morally, intellectually and spiritually a twenty some year old offspring which could all be ended by a lone AK-47 Bullet sending their young pride home in a body bag or in pieces left from an IED (improvised explosive device), Parents are very worried that their kids might get sucked up into this whole middle east mess and Don't KNOW What To Do????????

MOMS and DADS LISTEN UP!!! If your Son or Daughter or both have just returned from a Fun Stint at the local Army Recruiter's War Games Video Arcade, using the Latest virtual firepower equipped weapons which have them in awe and thoroughly infecting them with "War Fever" and wanting to SIGN UP -EEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!! -Take it Easy Mom - Take It Easy Dad! - HERE IS WHAT YOU DO: CALMLY have Him or Her or Both sit down with you in front of your DeskTop or Laptop, whichever you have in your home, and then Go To GOOGLE and Type IN: "US Armed Forces Enlistment Contract" and Presto! Up pops the devil himself! It is Free and there for all to view and read. Now go over this contract making sure Your Kids are reading it with you. They will SOON see that the Army promises NOTHING unless an Excellent Trade and/or Professional training program IS LISTED and SIGNED to by the RECRUITER. If NO training program is listed the army can put your offspring into VERY Dangerous Parts of the world grunting around with a rifle for Year and a half long deployments of the 8 year sign-up, 4 Active and 4"Recalled Reserve" which is what these Young Men and Women are facing Now. This armed forces enlistment contract MUST be signed by anyone who Joins Up at which point they are indentured servants to the whims of the Army officers who themselves are the offspring of the wealhty elite or republican club cadre politicos. They consider your Son and/or Daughter property of the army and will do whatever they wish with them. Now Once you have gone over the Army "Contract" with your kids, you have done your job and responsibility for protecting them. If they still have The Fever and insist on "Joining The Core" Well, at Least you have made sure They KNOW What They Are Getting Themselves into. And THAT, Moms and Dads is ALL you can do to keep your kids Out Of Harms Way....

Good Luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Phantom,

Expressed as one that simply does not understand what it takes to actually have freedom.

Bill, I must have missed it. Can you cite your combat credentials?
The stressors these soldiers are facing these days, and the pressures the leadership face to keep struggling soldiers in the ranks, are much different than the peacetime Army

Well Lincoln, I wont list my DD214 for inspection, but I do indeed have combat credentials. With my 20 years of active service as an 18A, I saw Panama, Desert Storm, Bosnia(twice), Somalia, OIF, OEF, and 3 tours of Afghanistan. Although Bill probably didnt word what he was trying to say very eloquently, I agree with him 100%. Soldiers arent being prepared for the ways of military life. Such as crying about repeated deployments. I spent 38 months straight in Afghanistan one time. The Army has always stayed til the fighting was done, and didnt cry about coming home. The one year tour mentality didnt start until Vietnam, and it was a policy created for crybabies who got drafted. The unofficial policy of the Army, and its leadership is either "in" war, or training to go to war. Yes, peacetime soldiers do indeed have a job, and that job is preparing to go to war.

Todays young soldiers are not being prepared for the challenges they will face. All of these challenges are not mechanical in nature, and it takes more than aiming a rifle or throwing a grenade to survive. So many changes have been made to the Army in the past 15 years or so, how much animosity do we have to endure, (and make our young people endure), before we will admit that the Army is NOT a political proving ground, and sometimes the old ways were best? How do we know they were better? Well shucks, they actually worked!!

Over the course of 20 years, I watched alot of soldiers come and go. I can assure you todays soldiers are not as prepared for combat,(physically or mentally), as they were in days gone by.

Kudos to Bill for actually having the guts to point this out.

1/41 Infantry 2AD (fwd) Desert Storm...what else do you need??

Sounds like you have been there, done that. Didn't know if you were one of those 'spent ten years stateside during the 80s got out an E-4' vets or the real thing. Hats off too.

Same to you GI JOE.

So my thoughts are not that the Army is necessarily doing things wrong, rather it is taking in the wrong people. Taking in a lot of the soldiers I saw when I was in (05-09) was a big mistake. And Basic training does not weed them out. You are right about that,

Trust me Lincoln when I tell you that the people entering the Army in the past 10 or so years, arent any different than the people entering 20 years ago.......The indoctrination, the building of a military mind, thats so critical to a soldiers success, isnt happening nowadays. It hasnt been happening in the past 15 or so years.

The Army has become too overrun by politicians wanting to use the Army to further whatever crackpot agenda theyre trying to fulfill, and the soldier is paying the price for it. In no way, shape, or form is this the soldiers fault. Nor is it any fault of the recruiting command not picking the right people for initial entry. Young people will always be young people. Its the Army's job to turn them into fighting men. If the Army doesnt fulfill this obligation, then they have failed, and whatever politician that weakens the Army's ability to create the strongest soldiers it possibly can, should be called out, and criticized for implementing failed policy.

GI JOE-1977278, Thanks for your long and dedicated service.

While I do believe that there have been intense mental stresses on soldiers of every era, not everyone handles them well, and I am not sure you can tell ahead of time, who won't. Also, everyone experiences different levels of battle.

I believe the biggest problem with how we fight wars now is that we invite Joe-public into the battle with cameras. The American public simply does not have stomach for war, and ever since Vietnam, it has become more clear. Before that like in Korea and WWII, most journalists were actually service members, and what they wrote was (rightly) written as propaganda to get support for actually winning a war. The way it is now, it gets very political, and you can't win a war that way.

If I were a President, the first thing I would do is tell CNN and FOX to buzz off.

I also served 8 years in another branch.

Couldnt have said it better myself Kevin.............

Devil Dog,

I don't know if you missed it, but the suicide rate among Marines is 33% higher than the Army. Just the facts

honestly we didnt have any suicides in my unit and I was in the infantry. you always have you "10% percent" that would get in trouble but no suicides but I dont doubt that they happen but I still stand behind that it is a cowards way out

that you know of?? may Marine 5484 they have some other issues like drinking to much risky behavior. I work on a marine base and I see it all the time.

well thats what Marines do we drink,fight,drive fast cars,chase girls, get tats thats just our culture hell the first Marine recruiting station was Tun Tavern thats just what we do and have always done

No thats what some do. Some hold themselves to a higher standard.

I couldn't agree more.

I'd say that a portion of this may be attributed to the economy as well - fresh high school graduates look to start out their lives, and have nowhere to turn but an army that is at war.

I have 2 friends in the army that engage in some risky behavior, both of whom are now leaving the due to how short of a time they were allotted to spend at home. I think that the drug use in this situation comes as more of a side effect of the real problem.

You made some good points, Sid.

It has long been well known that substance abuse is comorbid with post traumatic stress disorder, and that emotional dysregulation is a by-product of long-term trauma. Repeatedly sending men and women back for multiple tours was and is irresponsible

I don't really see how this statement is relevant to the current problem of suicides in the Army. As the articles, and all studies done so far, show; the majority of the suicides are completed by Soldiers who never deployed. It is true that traumas lead to all the problems you mention above, but if most of the suicides occurred among soldiers who have never deployed, thus never seen war trauma; it is likely that something pre-existing contributed to the suicide.

In my own experiences, it is the anxiety which precedes the deployment, and the feeling of lack of control over one's life, that drives more suicides than trauma exposure.

Likely, we will see a high level of suicides among OIF, OEF vets in the coming years, it is not accurate to assume that the wars are the cause of the suicides.

My heart goes out to the families that experienced losses. I personally am at a loss for a reactive solution to this problem. Perhaps the best thing the Army can do to lower suicide rates is become much more selective in who it admits into its ranks. People predisposed to poorly cope with stress are a bad choice to throw into one of the most stressful lifestyles there is.

- Former Active Duty Army Behavioral Health NCO with a 15-month deployment to Iraq with an Brigade combat team

I don't understand the main point of your comment. What do 85 lb packs have to do with suicide? What you may fail to realize is that most people are much more capable than they know and will adapt to any situation. Resiliency.

i think he is trying to say that it ends up much harder and difficult on them then they thought

Most soldiers don't quit. I know Marines don't either

No no we dont and god help you if you do

Wow, your comment truly is concerning. I have seen these things first hand, but what you are leaving out is the number of women, children, and elderly people beheaded, blinded, muted, maimed, and tortured by the Taliban. You leave out the number of women and children used as shieldsby the Taliban and AQ (against their will) so the media can broadcast the loss of civilian life. You also leave out the very, very good things that happen DUE only to America. The schools built, the lives saved, the people treated by our doctors, medics, and just regular caring Americans. I can tell you this from first hand experience. I've killed bad people and I've treated over 3,000 Afghani's. Saved close to 100 lives that would have been lost without Americas help.

While I completely disagree with your statement and the "shock value" you were trying for, I truly believe that your freedom to speak is worth fighting for. De Opresso Liber.

What about when they see the aftermath of big, brave men out hunting for other men to blow up the other men (@!$%#e to Sunni). They can't find them and they throw their explosive into a playarea were children are playing and five are killed? All Sunnis. My son was a medic in Bagdad in 2008 when this happened and he knew these neighbor kids all under 12. He called me and said this was the worst day he'd had over there-I could hear the hurt, anger, disgust in his voice as he said it is bad enough they do it to each other but to kids. He wasn't a young Soldier, he was 33.

i think all military personel should have to see a trained, knowledgable,permanet mental health TEAM at least every three months plus additional appointments prior to deployments and after deployments. this would reduce stigmatism associated with mental health appointments, because everyone has to go, it would help point out potential problems early, and personel might feel more comfortable seeing the same team over a period of time and seek help from them. it will not solve every suicide issue but it would be a good start. military personel are required to have physicals, dental appointments, shots ect. why not incorperate mandatory mental health appointments.

I think if you join the military you need mental health from the start.

On my last deployment to Desert Storm. It was Army policy to hold their people in country after serving on the front line. To give their people time to readjust, they lived in civilian resort areas; swimming pools, theaters, gyms, etc, in Bahrain and Saudi.

The Marine units were staged in desert camps, prior to their boarding the flight back home. One unit refused to stage their men in the hard-backs at Camp 7. Instead, they made the troops live in tents outside the fence. IMO - their NCOs/Officers had problems... Ha! Ha!

I always wondered which was more effective. Spending more time away from your family or being home surrounded by family/friends - those that love you....... I know my choice.

Ken Waltz,

You are correct, those that volunteer, to place their life in danger for their beliefs and Country. We ARE DIFFERENT - You and the unwilling can stay home with 'Mother'.

Whoa. This is heavy.

Sounds like nothing changed in 40 years

Can't you be more specific than "the enlisted troops" being the problem. Since the enlisted are the ones who actually carry out the orders from the officers that command them, you can tar all of them. Perhaps it was teh "junior enlisted draftees"

The divorce rate is high especially in units that normally don't see it. My ex's unit Chaplin is ready to pull his hair out at the rate of divorce that had skyrocketed in a unit that had traditionally been very stable. I found out 6 months after my ex-soldier's return from Afghanistan that he was planning to divorce me. He had started another relationship upon his return home rather than try to re assimilate back in the family. I hardly recognize the man he has become.

Exactly. There is nothing new about this, except our current worlds mentality.

Quoting Sting!.....Good God! If the British didn't have the military solution they utilized in WW2 under Winston Churchill's leadership, Your beloved philosophical guru, Sting would now be playing the accordion in some cheesy polka band. There is no lone methodology that can provide a perfect solution for every situation. You suffer from being able to only think in a linier thought process.

Ignorant speculation is the theme of your post! CLUELESS!

My how times have changed. When I was in the Corps in the late 80's, there were no beer vending machines in the barracks. In fact only NCO's could have beer in the rooms.

Rob, that's because Corsair is full of it. I also joined the AF in '76, NEVER ever saw any beer vending machines in the dorms or any where else...that's a pantload...same for the BS about getting promoted...unfortunately I DO remember that for a few years NCO club membership was just about mandatory because the clubs were struggling...not sure why BUT the NCO clubs also had restaurant dining and other facilities NOT just bars...

Go home CHI-COM!

Tony,

When was the last time China deployed the People’s Liberation Army to support any military actions? Not counting Tibet or putting down Chinese civilian unrest??????

Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and maybe Myanmar, and that was 40+years ago. Where they either walked or rode a train/truck to be deployed. Ha! Ha!

China tends to use their military in actions that are limited in scope, duration, and serve a clear purpose. I don't see eye to eye on their civil rights record.....for the record. They are smart enough not to get involved in military adventurism and jeopardize their troops and the nation's economy. The US could learn some important lessons from China.

Tony, our troops 40+ years ago walked, rode a train/ truck to be deployed. Some even by horseback.

MichaelBo,

Try Carter if you are talking about Afghanistan. He and then Reagan continued to; train, pay, and supplied weapons to OBL & the Taliban through the CIA & ISI.

After 9-11 and Congressional approval, Bush Jr and the UK removed the Taliban from power. They then turned the 'Nation Building' over to the UN, Dec 2001.

It was BHO, who has taken a UN Operation and for EGO & Political reasons made this 'His WAR'. Remember the speech BHO made March 2009? He placed his 'boy' in charge, changed the 'Chain-of-Command', and then doubled the US Troop levels - TWICE.

So far, BHO's action have resulted in 600+US Troop deaths, with NOTHING to show for it.

So where did George Bush lie about Afghanistan?

Iraq invasion also had congressional approval. WJC was the one professing that Iraq had WMD, years before Bush Jr was president. We will ignore the UN violations, trying to ASSASSINATE Bush Sr, paying terrorist bombers families $10,000.00, GENOCIDE with WMD's, etc, etc.