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U.S. Army Clears War of Wrongdoing
U.S. Army: Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention Report
- U.S. Army: It’s not war; the “risky behavior” of our troops at home drives them to suicide. Did you know that a solider committing suicide with a pistol often has just engaged in the high-risk behavior of aiming the barrel at his head and squeezing the trigger, in blatant violation of existing Army policies and standards? -
via mal contends
The Army calls their report released yesterday: The Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Suicide Prevention (HP/RR/SP) Report, the “result of a focused 15-month effort to better understand the increasing rate of suicides in the force.”
One wonders what exactly the Army-sanctioned authors do understand in this 9.97 MB of wasted computer space.
Nancy A. Youssef at McClatchy Newspapers has a piece out entitled “Army suicides: Poor leadership, not repeat deployments blamed.”
Reports Youssef:
The new Army report has found that inattention to rising rates of drug abuse and criminal activity among soldiers and not repeat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan is responsible for the record-high levels of suicide among troops. The 350-page report, which was released Thursday, said that military commanders are so focused on preparing their troops for war that they’ve allowed troops to engage in risky behavior at home that may lead to suicide.
Those servicemen and women and their reckless behavior! That’s why the high suicide rate.
Nothing in the report’s finding about war, the risky nature of war, repeated deployments, the stupidity of making war at any price. It’s the troops’ fault, the Marines’ fault, and a lack of leadership in keeping an eye of those reckless men and women who just need a firmer hand and tighter regulations.
“The dedicated effort behind this report sends a clear message to our force that we take the resiliency of our soldiers and families very seriously,” said Secretary of the Army John McHugh. “This effort is part of our culture to look closely at ourselves, and to make continuous improvements in our capability – but most importantly, to reduce the number of soldiers we lose to suicide.”
Sorry to put you through McHugh, but you get the message they’re sending: Covering War’s ass, either that or: We’re incredibly stupid..
The Army’s key findings:
Of course, targeting veterans and those actively serving is nothing new. See Blaming the Veteran: The Politics of PTSD (Ford, Huber, and Meagher),a truly classic piece of work published in February 2006.
But one has to look to fiction to describe the utter vacuity and obtuse mindlessness of the U.S. Army brass in addressing the epidemic suicide rate.
I refer you to that paragon of leadership, resiliency and regulations against the reckless, one Major Frank Burns (also known as Ferret Face played expertly by Larry Linville) from the M*A*S*H* television series.
“Well, I’m glad the Army has that cleared up,” said Frank to his disbelieving unit who were fed-up with the Army brass.
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Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=42505
Posted by Yanira Farray on Jul 30 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Veterans Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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“Nothing in the report’s finding about war, the risky nature of war, repeated deployments, the stupidity of making war at any price.”
Uh, what? Page 16 of the report:
“The greatest increase in military suicides have occurred in the Army and Marine Corps which have borne the greatest burden of ground combat in a protracted war.”
Did you actually read this thing?
350 pages of fluff
“The greatest increase in military suicides have occurred in the Army and Marine Corps which have borne the greatest burden of ground combat in a protracted war.”
You think?
Page 25:
“Work-related stress may include voluntary or involuntary separation from the Army, dangerous work environment (combat), or the increased OPTEMPO of an Army at war. This stress factor as an indicator for suicide has been steadily increasing over the past five years from 32% in 2005 to 57% in 2009.”
Page 30:
“Diagnosed cases of PTSD have steadily increased in the Army since 2003. Untreated PTSD can lead to suicidal behavior.”
“Post-deployment health concerns likely involve a complex interaction of war-zone traumatic events, war-zone injuries (including mTBI/concussion), sleep deprivation, physiological manifestations of extreme physical stress (including PTSD), medications, substance abuse, etc.”
Seems to me that they are addressing risk factors caused by war; fixing the suicide problem is not as simple as your disparagement of their attempt at a solution makes it seem.
Wow, you found you a reference to war “risk factors,” though this was ommitted as a key finding.
And: “Untreated PTSD can lead to suicidal behavior.”
This is brilliant. Did the Army also state that someone aiming, say a M16, at point-blank range and firing can lead to behavior in the target resembling death?
Your faith in the Army at solution-finding is perhaps mislaid?
Blaming suicides on crime among soldiers suffering from PTSD. Come on folks this has been going on at least since Vietnam. So today crime seems to be a dirty word when it comes to soldiers. We have a congress that has sold America’s soul for junkets and personal profits like promises of jobs, and military and civilian promotions.
Since Clinton left office he has made 10′s of millions of dollars off influence pedaling. Hell his daughter was married today to the son of a former congressman who left congress because of corruption. In fact it was written he was a one man crime wave. Clinton’s daughter and her new husband have one thing in common. Both their father’s are crooks. Notice how I left GW out of the picture?
What does government do today? Instead of fessing up to the problems for soldiers in a wars without goals and lack of leadership they blame the soldiers morals.
Bull$
Bill,
Bull is right.
Their key findings are that are that it’s the troops’ fault engaging in high-risk behavior at home.
As if an ill-conceived war were not a high-risk enterprise.
Would love to see Pres. Obama stand up and say, “Guys, we have been lied to; you’re coming home. And when you get here, we’ll honor you and not deny and delay you.”
Well said Michael!
Check out this site
http://www.epluribusmedia.org/features/20060206PTSD_intro.html
the best stuff I read about veterans being blamed
- American Enterprise Institute
- Sally Satel
- Not believing in God enough
shite and shite
I have been involved with this issue for over 30 years. Strange as it seems the same crap was discussed in 1981 as now. Such as stressers. My impression always was PTSD was much more scary to the bean counters in congress then Agent Orange.
Not sure why but it sure seemed that way. Maybe they thought it might scare away recruits because of the fear of combat? Take the macho away?
It was then and I am sure now to easier to write PTSD off as another illness, such as drug and alcohol use. Back then the VA was ran buy morons. Oh I am sure the VA was sprinkled among the morons were some good people.
The VA was mostly ran by former Vet organization hacks like national commanders and retired generals. Today as back then they had to be cloned yes men with government controlled minds. That is why the DAV, VFW and American Legion over the years have been as useful to combat veterans as tits on a boar hog.
If you kept your mouth shut you might get a good government job or work at national headquarters of some vet organization. Some of these jobs are very well paid.
Today it is ran by educated civil servants who for the most part do not use their brains or common sense when dealing with claims. Today the better paid jobs in the VA and government you are not paid to think deeply about anything.
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This is one of the most disgusting examples of their arrogance ;they are so convinced they will have their NWO that they try to shift the blame of their horrifying crimes to their victims, just like the Khazars always do-the spider in the web being ROTSCHILD, this is logical; how long will we let them get away with it? Till we live in FEMA-CAMPS?
What in hell would anyone expect the US Army to say—they’re going to say that fighting, killing, torturing and destruction is a good thing—-particularly for the
war corporatocracies and the General grade officers. The cannon fodder should wave the flag and feel proud to serve—they’re fighting for our freedom and way of life. And the Bush/Obama people knew that the homeland was on the verge of being attack by Iraqis and Afghanis with the most deadly weapons of all—muzzle loader shotguns. And I’m glad that Dick Cheney was alert enough to put us on to their chicanery and their muzzle loader shotguns.
Stop US imperialist war world wide ! Stop Nato ! Join our world communist news group !
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/communist_news/
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