The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> 22 Veteran Suicides a Day.........

22 Veteran Suicides a Day.........

Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Saturday, December 13 2014, 16:44:20 (UTC)
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....what is possessing Veterans, in these numbers, to kill themselves? Is this war against civilians so much worse than WW I or WW II was, in terms of causing soldiers to kill themselves? Surely soldiers in those wars committed suicide too.

The battle conditions in the two world wars were truly horrific..the trenches of WW I, the war in the Pacific...the battles etc......why are soldiers killing themselves in this war on terror in such great numbers like never before? What could be different this time?

The two world wars were fought against soldiers, usually equally equipped with murder weapons...in that sense it was a fair fight...also, there was an identifiable enemy, an opposing army....people DID murder civilians in those wars, but that was either a policy decision or a minor part of the fighting...it wasn't the main "enemy".

In this war against Iraq and Afghanistan there is no army, there are no soldiers, in the classical sense...there are no battlefields, only neighborhoods or grazing lands...and the enemy is nothing more than civilians who resent being attacked and occupied by Christian forces.

I have a feeling it is this fact, which gets driven home to our soldiers only after they get there and engage in their first "engagement"...only then do they realize that they are fighting against civilians, defending their homes and families....and the only reason they are "enemies" of ours is because WE are attacking them..illegally too and definitely immorally, and that only becomes clear once you're there and have killed your first father, brother,uncle and son....after you've kicked in your first front door to confront, not a soldier bristling with weapons, but a family, with terrified children hugging their mothers while you drag their menfolk out, maybe to never return again, or return burning with shame and hurt.

It can't be the horrors of battle, or army facing army, of trenches and foxholes and armed assaults or aerial bombing or artillery strikes that is causing so many young men and boys to kill themselves after they've experienced this sort of war. And it isn't even the bare fact of a war against civilians that's doing it.

I think it's the internal tension of maintaining the belief that they are "heroes" against the reality they experience...indeed, if anything, they are the OPPOSITE of heroes...it would be heroic to REFUSE such assignments, except the entire country is united in telling them they are heroes, even though they know better...they FEEL it, if they can't say it. I have a feeling that the soldier who could admit to himself that he was lied to, that he was wrong, even criminally wrong, will experience better mental health...he may feel tremendous remorse, but he might well be able to forgive himself, somewhat, for his naivte, for believing blindly what his mealy-mouthed politicians and newscasters told him

The one who is in danger, who can't live with himself, is the one who tries to live still believing the lies, still believing he was a hero, with the other feeling, based not on words but on his ACTIONS, that what he participated in was morally wrong, a crime against humanity...he has to maintain the tension between these two opposing beliefs...and I think the tension is too great for many...for many. To continue lie to yourself, to internalize the lies of OTHERS who lied to you, even against your own best knowledge and experience that they WERE lies, must be a terrific strain.

It might help these veterans to tell them that their feelings are correct, that is WAS an immoral war, based on lies, fought against civilians who never did us any harm....that could be the road to better health allowing them to purge their guilt and admit the truth...that they had been had...and maybe, just maybe, forgive themselves the worst of it.

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