Baffling Rise in Suicides Plagues the U.S. Military

I don't know if everyone has read the suicide note of Daniel Somers, but it is worth reading in its entirety:

LINK

 

I've never understood why PTSD wasn't more frequent in pre-gun powder days. I am not a soldier, but it seems like hacking off limbs and stabbing people in the chest would be more traumatizing than shooting someone 30 yards away.

 

Maybe because "curing" mental health in those days meant locking crazy people up in a room or killing them.

 

So you are saying it was far more prevalent, but just kept out of sight and mind? Maybe your right, I got no idea.

 

I don't know if it was more prevalent, but it was also a harder society to begin with.

Take a kid today. If you were have a child and make them do hard chores from the time they were 5 until the time they could leave the house, they'd be miserable, hate you, etc. But that's only because society around them is so different than that. Rewind 200 years and a child in those circumstances would feel normal.

We live in a relatively peaceful society today compared to history. The vast majority of us will never see violence on any significant scale. Heck, the idea of domestic violence being outlawed in say 1350 is crazy. I slapped my wife and go to jail? Whipping my kids with a lash is wrong?

 

Umm... people do realize that a LARGE portion of suicides in the military are from people who never seen combat or even deployed.

 

personal experience and
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013...hose-who-never-saw-combat/UPI-68231371392281/

 

If anything, the amount of suicides is lower than average compared to the US civillian populace.

From my personal perspective, I think it's true. The military doesn't want people who are depressed or high-strung to begin with, and weeds them out - I got rejected from military service for this very reason.