Millennial Soldiers Survive Iraq Still Die from It

If it isn't enough that the majority of the 3,889 soldiers (as of 1am CDT 12/14/07) that are now dead from this war are under 30 - now apparently many who have survived the war are so plagued with mental illness that they are committing suicide.

Today I saw a short piece on CNN with heartbreaking parents talking about cooking Thanksgiving Dinner while unknowingly their son was bleeding to death from a self inflicted gunshot wound.

"The number of soldiers who committed suicide increased 15 percent from 2005 to 2006, according to an Army report... The numbers have not previously been released, despite repeated CNN requests for data covering the past seven months."

Reasons given by the Army in 2006

"were failed relationships, legal and financial problems and "occupational/operational" issues. The "typical profile" of a soldier who commits suicide is a member of an infantry unit who kills himself with a firearm.

So when I heard this - knowing that a majority of soldiers tend to be young I wanted to check demographic data.

70% of those who attempted suicide are under 25. Add to that the 16% who are 25-30 and you have 86% of our Millennial soldiers that are attempting suicide. Those who actually succeed 67% are 18-30.

According to Psyciatric News

"The U.S. Army announced in August that 99 soldiers committed suicide in 2006. That translates to a rate of 17.3 per 100,000. There were 948 soldiers who attempted suicide."

Another story I heard a few weeks ago on NPR was about soldiers who are being dishonorably discharged for behavioral occurrence. Often times soldiers who have PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) are discharged dishonorably for poor behavior, going AWOL, or substance abuse while on the job.

"Soldier Tyler Jennings says that when he came home from Iraq last year, he felt so depressed and desperate that he decided to kill himself. Late one night in the middle of May, his wife was out of town, and he felt more scared than he'd felt in gunfights in Iraq. Jennings says he opened the window, tied a noose around his neck and started drinking vodka, "trying to get drunk enough to either slip or just make that decision. . . . Jennings says that when the sergeants who ran his platoon found out he was having a breakdown and taking drugs, they started to haze him. He decided to attempt suicide when they said that they would eject him from the Army."

The piece goes on to say that a GAO study found that 80% of soldiers who exhibited potential signs of PTSD were not referred for mental health follow ups. And even if they do, the unit is so overwhelmed that they don't get the help they need.

It then says that a major problem is when their superiors or friends find out that they have emotional problems that they treat them like "pariahs" saying "they don't belong in the Army."

"Jennings called a supervisor at Ft. Carson to say that he had almost killed himself, so he was going to skip formation to check into a psychiatric ward. The Defense Department's clinical guidelines say that when a soldier has been planning suicide, one of the main ways to help is to put him in the hospital. Instead, officers sent a team of soldiers to his house to put him in jail, saying that Jennings was AWOL for missing work."

And when they can't intimidate them out of their emotional distress, they just fire them.

"Richard Travis, formerly the Army's senior prosecutor at Ft. Carson, is now in private practice. He says that the Army has to pay special mental-health benefits to soldiers discharged due to PTSD. But soldiers discharged for breaking the rules receive fewer or even no benefits, he says.

Alex Orum's medical records showed that he had PTSD, but his officers expelled him from the Army earlier this year for "patterns of misconduct," repeatedly citing him on disciplinary grounds. In Orum's case, he was cited for such infractions as showing up late to formation, coming to work unwashed, mishandling his personal finances and lying to supervisors — behaviors which psychiatrists say are consistent with PTSD."

It's hard to comment on this. The facts clearly speak for themselves. I spent many of my years in college being pissed that people I know were fighting a war I knew was stupid and wrong.

Thomas PM Barnett says it well in his analysis of what we did wrong in Iraq and how we could have done it better:

"I ask you, who joins the military to do things other than war? Actually, most of them. Jessica Lynch never planned on shooting back.

Now, a chunk of them are dead or they want to be. I know it isn't as many people as there were in Vietnam or in WW2 or WW1, but it doesn't diminish the fact that these are my people. My friends and yours, our sisters and brothers, and our college mates. Is this really how we want to treat them?

No wonder they are having hard time with recruitment.