mentally ill troops sent back into combat

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12777489/from/RS.2/

"recruiting is a challenge..."

Fucking pathetic.

I think the families of those men should get together and sue.

And "recruiting is a challenge" crap is a lame excuse, and just another indicator of what is wrong with this war and this administration.

The fact that commanders, not healthcare professionals, get to say whether or not a soldier is fit or not, is absolute bullshit.

What that JAG officer says about commanders labeling suicidal/homicidal soldiers behavior as, "acting up", is another indicator of the mindset.

No wonder we have soldiers rolling grenades into tents full of their sleeping comrades and offing themselves.

Here's something interesting on WWII and the way training with regard to showing mercy on the battlefield has "evolved" in post WWII wars that the US has been involved in:

http://www.thewe.cc/contents/more/archive2004/august/ww2_soldiers_did_not_kill.htm

"A few military officials are beginning to worry, too, noting the high rates of suicide, mental damage and emotional torment among combat veterans."

I am going to venture a guess, that the suicide rate, in earlier wars that US troops were a involved in probably gets lower and lower, as we look backward in time. I have to get ready for work, but I will dig into it later when I get home.

That article made me sick to my stomach.
Combined with the earlier knews of the autistic boy who signed up it paints a telling picture of the military arm of Bush's corporate fascist state.


You guys have a great country over there, but the fucks pulling the strings are killing it for you.
Said it before and Ill say it again... you guys need a revolution.

I wonder if anyone noticed a strange paragraph in that article?

let me post it here:


Wow, now that's efficiency in government. They were able to deploy soldiers who committed suicide.

Also, the idea that some soldiers were "kept on duty" after being prescribed antidepressants does not necessarily equal coflicting with a regulation that "cautions against use of antidepressants for extended deployments."

Just my little bit of critical reading before resorting to "corporate facist state" rhetoric

There are no statistics presented to indicate average rates of suicide among military professionals and/or military professionals during non-combat periods. I wonder if anyone here has more info to put help put the numbers in perspective?

Of course, "recruiting is a challenge" is not an acceptable excuse, but I winder if you can imagine the difficulties the military has with claims of mental illness, depression, and suicidal feelings. I understand if the military has a policy that doesn't immediatley grant dismissal from active combat status for every soldier who makes such a claim.

I have to add one more point about the article:



"standards for enlistment" are not necessarily the same as standards for "redeployment."

I'm not saying that we should redeploy soldiers with persistent post-traumatic symptoms, but the article does a poor job of presenting factual information about policies and regulations.

.

What, you've never seen Universal Soldier?

(If you haven't, not missing anything, really.)

Somewhat more seriously, I read that as talking about soldiers who suicided after they were redeployed.

In any case, like you I remain somewhat skeptical about the factuality of the article, though for me it's not a "liberal media" thing as much as a persistent lack of evidence that major news outlets can handle technical issues sufficiently well to be citeable as supporting evidence, based on stories covered where I personally have knowledge of the subject.

I found it odd, but no doubt that is exactly what the writer meant.

Recruiting has been a challenge? Hmm, I wonder why...

Of course, some psychological maladies are tougher to diagnose and rely on the word of the 'victim', but this to me is still a bad PR move. The article identified "over 100" at risk (don't think it said that 100 troops had committed suicide, that's a huge number), which is less than 1/1000th of the deployed personnel in Iraq -- they'll take a black eye over this instead of transferring them home? (Which, in turn, would open a loophole for other troops who want to go home and are willing to fake symptoms - during Vietnam, anti-war groups were coaching US troops on how to fake symptoms). Going on normal military demographics, chances are less than 1/4 of these cases were actually in combat units - most are in support groups or deployed in naval & air bases on the fringes of the conflict.

There's another solution, though. The enemy we're fighting believes in suicide as a valid tactical weapon. So he straps bombs to the back of his mentally ill troops and puts them to use. That is what I call efficency. If you're going to take a PR hit, why not go all the way?

If the soldiers are medically cleared then, yes, the commanders have jurusdiction. If their medical profile prohibits something the no one can countermand that. So the soldiers were deployed after being on antidepressants and not getting enough counseling. But by who's standards was it not enough? And who says the military didn't offer it? Perhaps the treatment was not received because it was refused?

I'm not saying I feel one way or another other than losing someone to suicide is an unnecessary heartache, but one sided articles are not something you should base your personal policies on.

Yep, I agree here. I'd like to see some additional information. Its pretty sketchy how they define things in the article.

On a side note: This does remind me of the huge incident when Patton slapped around soldiers who were suffering from combat fatigue (as they called it then).