Gregg
First current event blog posting
Topic: Health
Title: US military suicide prevention efforts fail
Writer: Maggie Fox (Health and Science editor)
Publication Name: Thomas Reuters
Date of Publication: 9/23/10
Length about 583 words
Main Idea:
We all hear about the troubles that US military members go through once they come home. A lot of them develop post traumatic stress disorder which is caused by traumatic events, much of the time relating to death or threats of death to themselves or people they know. According to the report 1,100 servicemen and women committed suicide in 2005 to 2009 which is about one suicide every day and a half. The Army's suicide rate doubled in that time. There are approximately 1.9 million U.S. service men and women that are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army, Air force, Navy and Marines created suicide prevention programs to counter these problems. On the ground prevention training often failed because those running the sessions did not understand the importance of the programs. Some of the problems is that many service men don't come in to get help, and a lot of them do not trust the military programs / organizations to be able to help them. Many Marines, troops who seek mental health services can lose their security clearances, their weapons and can be taken away from duties vital to their careers if they do go seek help.
Conclusion:
Many military members that come home from battle do not get the help needed to return to their lives before war. Much of the problem is caused by training (programs for help) failure, and system failure. Many people who do suffer from post traumatic stress disorder in the military, do not go for help simply because if they do they will be pulled from the military. This is a continuous problem since the US started fighting the wars, and dealt with quick and efficiently. The prevention programs must be taken more seriously, and more programs should be created.
Opinion: It will be important to set up a good base for these help programs especially with the increase of troops going into Afghanistan in the next few years, under Obama's new war plan. If this situation is not dealt with right, it could become an even larger problem. I think a base system for dealing with mental health in the military should be set soon.
I don't think that normal human beings can handle the trauma after fighting in war. It's very traumatic to be put in a situation where your friends are being killed, your killing others, and where you yourself could be killed. Our soldiers are risking their life for our country, so we need to make sure we support them when they are back.
ReplyDeleteI think that a lot of men think that talking about their struggles associated with their time in combat is "weak". Many soldiers don't expose their feelings to others because they want to be seen as strong and brave.
Well, no matter how strong or brave you are, you can't psychologically handle something like war.
When our soldiers come back, we NEED to provide them with programs that will help , and we should even enforce it. They deserve all the help they can get after fighting so hard without being asked to.
I think mental health is EXTREMELY important. I believe that before entering the military they should prepare the troops for being mentally prepared, and it's possible they could have a disorder (such as bi-polar, border-line personality) or even be depressed. This is dangerous because it is possible instead of killing themselves, they can kill the ones that make them feel that way. I think they should have a mental training, before, after and during their time. Many people usually join to fight our country because 1. they feel like they have nothing to live for -> meaning that they already have signs of severe depression and 2. they want to die and meaningful death, meaning they don't really mind if they die (which is also not healthy).
ReplyDeleteI believe that a lack of basic training is at blame for a lot of the mental health problems around the military. I am not saying that our military is bad I just feel that training needs to be boosted. It is very prominent with Special Forces to put their trainees through 24-48hrs of high stress training such as false ambushes, tear gas, and complex missions. This is as close as the soldiers will get to combat in training but in basic training this is less prominent. If we put more of this in training I believe we would lose less troops to PTSD and suicide and more soldiers would be able to keep their posts longer.
ReplyDeleteI think that most soldier will ignore all the help from the training programs because they don't think that it will benefit them. I think that the stress from war returns home with them and that they think that if they attend one of those programs that it will hurt their confidence or morale. And if the soldier continues to live without help that it will cause severe depression.
ReplyDeleteI think that when soldiers come back from war, sometimes people may not even recognize that they are having post traumatic stress disorders. They themselves might not even realize they need help and I think what should happen is that the training systems do need to be improved.
ReplyDelete