Military, Politics, Society

“Terrifying” Report: More Soldiers Dying From Suicide Than Combat

seal army The military has released figures showing record suicide rates that show more soldiers are dying by their own hand than those of the enemy. In just the Army alone, 24 soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in January. That is six times the number from 2008.


During the same period, all of the branches lost 16 U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq in January.

One official has described the findings as “terrifying.”

The Marines are also reporting an increase in suicides: 41 in 2008, up from 33 in 2007 and 25 in 2006, according to a Marines report.

For the full story, click here.

108 thoughts on ““Terrifying” Report: More Soldiers Dying From Suicide Than Combat”

  1. BobEsq:

    I read some of Dr. Altmeyers work, my opinion is that the reason he dosent publish it is because it would get shot down by serious intellectuals. He posts it surupticiously on a web site to be accessed by left wingers to be used as “serious” argument for denigration of conservatives by people witout any real scientific backround. If he had the balls he would publish and go through peer and critical review, but that is not what this study is for.

    And BobEsq. a question for you:

    I am going to plant a tree, should I feel good about myself? What have I done? Nothing realy except plant a tree, but it is environmentaly good and my intention is to do good work. But I have planted that tree in front of my neighbors window ruining his view, I did not mean to do this I wanted to plant a tree but in the planting of the tree I have brought about a bad result for my neighbor, should I still feel good about myself because of my action?

    Should I take the tree down or should I leave it up (the tree is on my property and there are no zoning or environmental prohibitions and that is another argument)?

  2. Buddha,
    The Maple Syrup Over Manhattan was excellent. I also commend Bob,Esq. for his John Dean seminar for our good friend Bron98. I know I have said it before, but it still amazes me that the Von Trolls can spew so much with so little effect. Here’s to a troll free weekend!

  3. mespo,

    Thank you. May I say the quality of your posts and those of Bob are an example to us all. I’ll have to say, I am a little proud of Maple Syrup Over Manhattan. It felt good to write it. I even liked reading it – an unusual statement as I am my own harshest critic. But I shouldn’t be surprised. One rises to the level of those who elevate him.

  4. Buddha:

    You and Mike A have been on a roll lately. Bob and I have to pick up the pace. Rafflaw is in his usual spot on the rail with CCD moving up fast. I predict a photo finish.

  5. Wow!

    Turlee’s bringin’ the heat! Mike A, Bob, raff, mespo, CCD, thanks for the entertaining read. Bravo! I applaud you all. It is making my coffee sweeter and my slight hangover vanish. If one is judged by the company he keeps, I am truly honored. You boys administer a right proper spanking to misbehaving children! Pun intended.

  6. Bron98

    “you will have to do better than John Dean. I did not even bother to look at that. Dean is not a conservative and is a hand maiden for the left.”

    I’ll have to do better than a Goldwater conservative? Do you have any idea how many informal fallacies of logic you racked up in your statement above? Why engage in argument if you’ve already made up your mind?

    “There are definitely serious issues of authoritarianism on both the left and the right.”

    Authoritarianism requires members to be in lock-step. Had you read John Dean, you’d be familiar with his argument that getting the left to act in an authoritarian manner would be tantamount to ‘herding cats.’

    “The constitution is in a shambles but it was not Bush that did it,”

    I’m not blaming Bush for the deterioration of the the constitution during the past two centuries; I simply despise him for using it as a urinal puck for the eight years of his administration.

    “[Bush] inherited it from a long line of bad decisions. What was the first one Marbury vs. Madison? Didnt that enhance the power of the court tremendously?”

    Indeed; Article III contains no specific power of judicial review.

    “Wasnt there some worry at the beginning that the judicial branch would become to powerful with no real limitations on their powers?”

    Sure there was; and Hamilton led the charge.

    In fact, if Hamilton were alive on December 9, 2000, he would have literally beaten the crap out of Antonin Scalia and crammed a copy of his dissent in ‘Minestretta’ down his perfidious f’n throat for being the fifth and deciding vote to issue a Stay in violation of the separation of powers doctrine.

    Yet you feel compelled to apologize and spin tripe on behalf of an administration motivated primarily by greed, ill will and utter contempt for the rule of law; much like the character Little Bill Daggett in the film ‘Unforgiven.’ BTW, considering just how hopeless your right wing apologist agenda is, you’d be wise to recall the moral & ending of that film.

    Will Munny: “Any man don’t wanna get killed better clear on out the back.”

    After all; “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

  7. Chris, the exchanges on this topic illustrate one of the problems created by the way the Bush administration has sold the Iraq war. Opposition to our policies in the mideast has been treated as opposition to the armed forces. Everyone who has ever criticized the war has been accused of not supporting the troops. As asinine as that accusation is, people inevitably believe it.

    Now, for some realpolitik, if you will. George Bush and the neoconservatives who formulated his policies determined early on that we needed to promote democratic rule in the Middle East. We determined to begin that task in Iraq because everyone hated Saddam (with good reason) and we could use 9-11 and terrorism as cover. There were two problems with this plan. First, the Middle East is not Europe. The peoples of the Middle East have traditional societies which for religious, ethnic and social reasons are tribal and clan based. The concept of democracy as we understand it is based upon historical western values and political philosophy. It cannot be exported like manufactured goods to whatever region of the world we think needs it. Second, Iraq was a foolish target for an equally foolish plan. Saddam was actually doing us a favor. His was the only secular government in that part of the world and he was able to keep Iran busy. Iraq could only be held together by a strong and strict central government, something Saddam understood quite well.

    We sent in troops on a mission and they accomplished it promptly and professionally. We then left them there because we had no clue what to do next. Regardless of what everyone wants to say about the wonders of elections in Iraq, what we will wind up with there is an Islamic Republic that we will not like. There has already been significant ethnic cleansing. Christians are no longer welcome in many parts of the country, and the status of women in the “new” Iraq is arguably worse than it was under Saddam.

    It is not our job to eliminate repressive governments around the world. And even if it were, there would be places with a higher priority than Iraq. The point is that our policy toward Iraq is a failure because our goals were impossible to achieve. When the administration belatedly came to understand that, they simply changed the goals. Now instead of a democratic Iraq we simply want a stable Iraq. That’s wonderful. But Iraq was stable thousands of deaths and a trillion dollars ago.

    No one denigrates the work done by American soldiers. Young men and women from this country have performed courageously in Iraq and have done their best to assist the Iraqi people. But the leaders of this country have once again failed the military by sending it on an ill-conceived mission.

  8. Chris,
    I tried responding but for some reason my comment is awaiting moderation. It may be due to the two links in my response. I hope it gets release in time for you to see it.

  9. Chris,
    Let’s be exact. You said you met thousands of Iraqi’a personally and they were grateful. You will excuse me if I don’t believe that hyperbole. Here is a quote from your friend the general, “The time is right for Marines in general terms to leave Iraq,” said Marine Corps Commandant James Conway.
    That war has become largely a nation-building mission rather than the pitched fighting in which the Marine Corps excels, Conway said”. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_re_us/marines_iraq That is what I said he said. You will see in this military.com article, he was trying to get his marines out as early as 2007. http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,152377,00.html. What these articles say are almost exactly what I stated earlier so I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe the next time you and the General are having one of your private conversations, have him call me.

  11. Chris,
    Please take a look at the link to Bob Altemeyer. It is currently awaiting moderation.

  14. What he said was that he wanted to get the marines in the fight. He said nothing about putting the marines in Afghanistan so we could fight the real people who attacked us on 9/11. Thats not what he believes, thats what you believe.

    Like i said to you, i experienced high amounts of gratitude from the Iraqis

  15. Chris,
    Excuse me for not having the inside story on what generals are telling each other in private. I am just a peon and have to rely on the public record. You know, official facts. If the general didn’t want it on the record, he wouldn’t have said it. And by the way, we have done some good things for the Iraqis. However, that doesn’t allow us to kill thousands and thousands of Iraqi civilians. As we mentioned to you in an earlier thread, the Iraqi’s don’t think we should be there.

  16. That is absolutely not why Gen. Conway wanted to go to Afghanistan. The marines mission is not as an occupier or a police force as they were being used, that is more the mission of the army. He didnt want to make this a permanent practice. He did however want to put the marines back in the fight. Ive personally met the Commandant and have heard him, speak many times. Not once did I ever hear him say anything but good things about what we were doing for the people of Iraq. I was a security officer for a General while i was stationed in Iraq, and was present for many candid conversations between GOs. What you are saying, is not what they were saying to each other about what was going on in Iraq.

  17. chris:

    “We are trained how to fight them. That has nothing to do with how i feel we should handle Iran or Korea.”

    ***********

    Right you are chris. That is why we have civilian control over our dogs of war. “Grunts” are fine foot soldiers, but their policy making role is quite limited. McArthur was a fine soldier and better administrator. So it’s obvious that at a higher level, soldiers are trained to both fight a war, stop a war, and win a peace. You have about 1/10 of the puzzle with your training and experience, let the brass handle the rest.

  18. Holy snikies! I don’t know where to start. However, I will start with Bron. Bron you stated that “North Korea should already be a part of a unified Korea and Iran should be a secular state.” If I understand that thinking, all countries must comply to America’s idea of Democracy and America’s idea of keeping religion and government separate, or they are fair game to be attacked by the United States. With all due respect, that sounds arrogant. Actually, it is arrogant. Every country has the right to do whatever they want to as long as they are not endangering their neighbors or attacking their neighbors.
    Iraq was not endangering us or its neighbors when we attack. Just because they attacked Kuwait in the 90’s doesn’t give us the green light to attack them in 2003. Just because Sadamm was an abusive dictator, that does not give us license to attack his country and kill hundred of thousands of Iraqi civilians. If that was the standard, we would be very busy throughout the world. Under your standard we should be attacked by other countries for our destructive attack and occupation of a country that did not attack us and was not harboring Al-Qaida or WMD’s.
    Chris,
    As I have stated before, thank your for your service. As a Marine, you know that a wasted Marine is a tragedy. When we attack Iraq under false pretenses, it puts Marines at risk over a lie. I know I would not want my Marine son to be put in harms way in the wrong country. Even the head of the Marines wanted to pull the Marines out of Iraq and put them in Afghanistan where he believed the real fight against the people who attacked us was at. But George W. would not allow it. I think it is time that you realize that you were backing a lier and a war criminal. Fortunately, the country also realized that Bush was a felon and threw the Republicans out of control before they could lead us down the path.
    Mespo and Buddha,
    Good work!

  19. CCD:

    Actually I am reading it now. Rather interesting. In the sense that a good many of the ideas expressed on this web site seem to come from Prof. Altemeyer. Buddha must have that book in front of him when he writes. I also took that test and scored 77. In doing the read it seems that the author is trying to elicit an authoritarian response from the conservative side of the aisle and therefore prove his point that conservatives are authoritarian. The questions he asks are generaly leading and I found myself answering with either a 0, a +4 or a -4 I think 2 of the questions were +2 and +3.

    I think a better way to ask those questions would have been to take out the personal morality stuff. For example I do not think that chidren should be brought up by single parents or by 2 parents of the same sex unless there is good reason, not because I think that a single man or woman would be a bad parent or that 2 men or 2 women wouldnt be loving parents but I think that children need both the male and female influence. (would I make a law to that effect -no)
    What I am trying to say is that some of those questions cannot be answered properly and lead to a predetermined conclusion, namely that people on the right are authoritarian and that people on the left are virtuous by way of questioning authority.

    And the rambling letter about getting rid of the bill of rights, who in their right mind would even think about doing that? I personally know of no conservatives that would even suggest that and I would be horrified at the suggestion. I do admit that there are some on the right that are definitely in the totalitarian mode – Tom Delay comes to mind as does John McCain, I heard him on the radio one day in commity about a radio station/company, clear channel I think and called his office and told them I thought McCain was a Nazi for some of his views as he expressed them in the hearing. Needless to say I did not support him in 2008 as I think he has strong dictatorial tendencies.

    Its easy to agree with a personal proposition held by another and harder to recognize the possibility of an inaccuracy in that belief if validated (in your mind) by another.

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