08-07-2013, 10:57 AM
Interesting, all we have been hearing for the last 5 or 6 years is the increase in suicide among our soldiers and that it is due to the deployments and what they go through.
Now it appears not so much.
This part:
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Other experts have suggested that people who volunteer for service during war may be more likely to have preexisting mental illness.
A recent Times article looking at suicides among service members who never deployed to war zones found several cases in which recruits were struggling with the direction of their lives and joined the military in search of purpose.
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Lines up with what I remember about service time. You could spot the ones that were going to do something colossally stupid, they were squirrily on day 1 for the most part. Not all, but most of them. I knew or knew of several that capped their self, or someone else, or tried to.
One guy, nice as could be, completely harmless lopro kind of guy. Won a raffle in the shop and the prize was a half gallon of Jack. That was Friday, I was off base all weekend. Monday I am in the shop 6am and heard he broke off a broom handle, beat on one of the other guys door in the barracks and then stabbed him in the chest with the broom handle, claimed he was the Black Jesus Christ. I talked to him a couple times while he was in the nuthatch, claimed he didn't know anything.
Now it appears not so much.
This part:
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Other experts have suggested that people who volunteer for service during war may be more likely to have preexisting mental illness.
A recent Times article looking at suicides among service members who never deployed to war zones found several cases in which recruits were struggling with the direction of their lives and joined the military in search of purpose.
-------------
Lines up with what I remember about service time. You could spot the ones that were going to do something colossally stupid, they were squirrily on day 1 for the most part. Not all, but most of them. I knew or knew of several that capped their self, or someone else, or tried to.
One guy, nice as could be, completely harmless lopro kind of guy. Won a raffle in the shop and the prize was a half gallon of Jack. That was Friday, I was off base all weekend. Monday I am in the shop 6am and heard he broke off a broom handle, beat on one of the other guys door in the barracks and then stabbed him in the chest with the broom handle, claimed he was the Black Jesus Christ. I talked to him a couple times while he was in the nuthatch, claimed he didn't know anything.