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Earlier, I wrote this piece below in response to an article. However, such a touching subject should be shared with the complete Newsvine audience. We all must become involved with this tragedy of life that affects our friends, military, relationships, and family.
Citizen Ira
Suicide is a terrible fact of life. During my years in Asia (nearly twenty), suicide was considered the honorable thing to do in some cases. But in actuality, the act was done because of failure, disappointment, guilt, embarassment, and jealousy.
Our troops overseas in GWOT (Global War On Terrorism) are mentally disturbed because of the change in environment and the pressures of war. Killing a person could become a necessity when your life or family is threatened. Even then you need counselling to peacefully deal with what has happened.
Add that anger, anxiousness, and anxiety to the systematic killing of humans takes its toll on the human mind. Every man and woman are not natural killers. They are potential but not natural. There's a difference.
It's easy and likely the commanders are to blame for not being observative of their force. But the truth of the matter, the commanders are stressed out too. War is not a common, acceptable, and practical style of living. Especially after almost 9 years and God knows how many deployments, I'm not at the least surprised of the suicide rate.
During my 24 years in the Air Force, this has always been a problem during the war era and peace time era. Suicides still persisit because some just coudn't deal with the change of environment. Add war, and the rate only goes up. Who is the blame? Collectively, we all are. We all are invloved. Many of us saw the signals/ warning and did nothing.
Fact is, the majority of us are not natural killers. But if we are forced to, for a period of time, we conclude the right person to kill is ourselves......
Citizen Ira
