Suicide of Vets

Remember, the draft age generation is aging, and 70% or so of these suicides are from vets over 50.

Indicators for suicide: Male, middle aged, chronic pain.

 

How out of sync percentage wise is the vet suicide rate vs the non vet suicide rate?

 

Not adjusted for age, just vet population against civilian population, about 50% higher in men and 5x higher in women.

 

Then there is a definite problem the V.A. should deal with. The govt. has been great at creating soldiers but terrible about reprogramming them to return to society. I am friends with a Vietnam sniper. We have talked quite a bit about his problems reacclimating to society. He said it has been almost impossible for him to tranation from killing anyone and anything that might be the enemy to adjusting to civilian life. He said after all these years, when someone annoys or aggravates him, his first thought is I should kill them.

 

There are twice as many vets 55+ than there are 54 and below, again, mostly male. Which is in no way comparable to the general population.

Now, every suicide is a tragedy, so don't get me wrong. I just wonder if certain groups are throwing out the 22 a day number in an effort to condemn recent conflicts, when a great share of the suicides are from elderly men from earlier generations.

Those female, numbers seem to be way out of wack, though.

 

I have thought a lot about this topic. I myself decided to join the military in undergraduate. I came down with psychosis a month before my meeting with a recruiter after graduation with my B.A. Turns out I had schizoaffective disorder and was disqualified. Something that stings to this day. That said, I really feel for the vets.

Honestly, just looking at the recruits like myself and those in ROTC, how in the world do you adapt to suburban life in America once you have pondered the hardest questions in life for months or years? Questions that dog you, because you know you can, and maybe will, die on a battlefield.

The juxtaposition between a college student who wants to join up and those who don't is jarring. I had friends in ROTC in undergraduate, who honestly recruited me to join, and they were so different than everyone else in college in terms of maturity. Everyone was out partying and wearing Che Guevara, but the ROTC people got taught how to kill people on campus and wore their uniforms proudly. Those of us that wanted to serve were different people from those around us, even then.

When you factor in the programming of boot camp, where you get taught how to kill others; then those who see action, kill other people, and lose dear friends; or even those who are wounded or get very sick and return home; it is beyond jarring to think of such heroes in comparison to the average American.

The juxtaposition, in my mind alone, of how different a veteran is to a normal civilian, who sets the culture around us through consumerism, is beyond jarring. It is practically schizophrenic, which explains a lot about why people adapt back to civilian life so badly. They have lived in a world beyond everyone else, they are mature in a way that this culture rejects, and their reward is to try and fit in with those that would never serve in a million years.

If these soldiers were self destructive party-ers before joining, they can expect to get involved in a cult of hedonism opposed to everything the military stands for if they revert back to "normal."

Honestly, I think the problem lies mainly with our own culture, which is alien to military culture. I take that as a bad sign. Most millennials would never dream of serving in the military, but those who do are labeled heroes and shoulder so much of the burden of our own protection.

 

Salty, what was the outcome of your research? I am very interested in what you found out myself.

 

Cool, thank you.

I heard the military did a huge mental health study in 2014 from Frontline, so I just found this:

NIMH » Suicide in the Military: Army-NIH Funded Study Points to Risk and Protective Factors

I have a lot of reading to do on this STARRS study. Figured I'd share it.