Solider Suicide Rate

I just read this story that disturbed me in a way that would probably be shocking to most.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080529/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_suicides_13

The suicide rate of soldiers just hit its highest rate, 115 in the last year, up from 102 in 2006. Honestly that is not the shocking part. The thing that surprised me was the reason for the suicides.

The psychiatric consultant to the Army surgeon general said that, "We see a lot of things that are going on in the war which do contribute — mainly the longtime and multiple deployments away from home, exposure to really terrifying and horrifying things, the easy availability of loaded weapons and a force that's very, very busy right now."

The exposure to really terrifying and horrifying things stood out for me, I don't know about you, but aren't these soldiers trained to be exposed to the terrifying and horrifying things? They signed up to go to war. What did they expect was going to happen? What did they think they were going to see?

I don't know if I'm being cold-hearted or if I'm misunderstanding the seriousness of this situation, but hundreds of thousands of people commit suicide each year in this country, and they are not usually the ones who signed up to protect this country.

"And so all of those together we think are part of what may contribute, especially if somebody's having difficulties already," she told a Pentagon news conference. If someone is having difficulty already, I would expect them to deal with their problems accordingly. I chose to re-do her initial response to the "shocking" suicide numbers, with more of the information from the story. Correct me if you think I am wrong.

The soldiers who committed suicide had trouble with relationships, work problems and legal and financial difficulties, add in the fact there is an easy availability of loaded weapons and there you have it. All the other things she said don't make sense to me. Those things should not lead to a solider, who signed up for the military, should have been trained and prepped on what they were going to encounter, included the multiple deployments and time away from home. Those sound like excuses. Honestly, if someone is so terrified and horrified while protecting this country, then maybe they should not be protecting this country during the time of war.

I'm just saying.

JB