By John Ballard
The so-called "all-volunteer" military is not working.
What more evidence do we need?
For the second year in a row, more American soldiers�both enlisted men and women and veterans�committed suicide than were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Excluding accidents and illness, 462 soldiers died in combat, while 468 committed suicide. A difference of six isn't vast by any means, but the symbolism is significant and troubling. In 2009, there were 381 suicides by military personnel, a number that also exceeded the number of combat deaths.
Earlier this month, military authorities announced that suicides amongst active-duty soldiers had slowed in 2010, while suicides amongst reservists and people in the National Guard had increased. It was proof, they said, that the frequent psychological screenings active-duty personnel receive were working, and that reservists and guardsmen, who are more removed from the military's medical bureaucracy, simply need to begin undergoing more health checks. This new data, that American soldiers are now more dangerous to themselves than the insurgents, flies right in the face of any suggestion that things are "working." Even if something's working, the system is still very, very broken.
One of the problems hindering the military's attempt to address soldier suicides is that there's no real rhyme or reason to what kind of soldier is killing himself. While many suicide victims are indeed afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after facing heavy combat in the Middle East, many more have never even been deployed. Of the 112 guardsmen who committed suicide last year, more than half had never even left American soil.
"If you think you know the one thing that causes people to commit suicide, please let us know,� Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli told the Army Times, "because we don't know what it is."
Had a military draft been in place from the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq these adventures would have long since come to an end. Body bags and crippling life-long injuries have political consequences that are smarter and safer than what is causing this tragedy.
Instead...
- Many young men and women imagine that life in uniform is more promising than the bleak civilian alternatives they face,
- civilian contractors become aggressively patriotic as visions of profitability dance in their heads,
- Ike's warnings of the military-industrial complex have been forgotten amid careless use of the word war (War on Drugs. War on Cancer. War on Poverty. Etc.),
- and as memories of conflicts in Vietnam, Korea and WWII fade so, too, do memories of the horrors of war.
Military service is a patriotic duty and for some a career. Like many family occupations military service often follows from one generation to the next (entertainers, politicians, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, sports figures). That is a historic tradition reflected in most societies.
A well-prepared military, both active and reserve, is as essential as police, fire protection and emergency medical services. But we don't advocate arson in order to give firemen something to do any more than we encourage tooth decay to help dentists pay the rent. Neither should we advocate wars simply because we have armies. Professional warrior classes have a poor record in history. Military coups, though occasionally instrumental in advancing the cause of representative government, are more often associated with despotism.
When I was a draftee in 1965 I truly hated being forced to give up two years of my life for what I considered an empty waste of time. But once I was past Basic and AIT I got over it. And when I finally returned to school (taking eight years to get an undergraduate degree) the GI benefits helped make it possible to afford college. The Vietnam Era had many casualties and I don't know the suicide stats. But my guess is that a big part of today's tragic numbers derives from a combination of (a) unrealistic expectations and (b) desparation on the part of many that if a military career is their best hope for the future they would rather be dead than continue.
Military service, properly understood, should be regarded as one of the more disagreeable parts of good citizenship. No one should celebrate combat and that is the core reason that military service exists. There are bright spots and benefits to be sure. Churchill famously said there is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result. But the main mission, together with the risk of death or injury, is nothing to feel good about.
I believe that a draftee on active duty has a healthy expectation that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and once back into civilian life may feel relieved that one of life's more disagreeable chapters is finally behind him. I'm convinced that a military draft would result if fewer suicides both on and off the battlefield.
These numbers are disturbing. I wonder what the normal - awful term - rate in the forces was prior to the start of the Bush/Obama wars. Anyway a number like 468 doesn't mean much to me so I have to turn it into one that gives me some perspective. First, it means 1.3 people are killing themselves a day over a year; or 20.5 people are doing it per 100,000 active + reservist individuals annually. The latter morbidity rate compares with between 5 or 6 Americans killing themselves per 100,000 in an average year. This average US rate of suicide means that approximately 16,500 people are killing themselves annually. Bad enough, eh. But if it was the US military rate it would be about 66,000 people doing it.
ReplyDeleteI'd expect someone would like to find out what the hell was going on pretty quickly if, on average, a mid-western town or, an east - west coast suburb was offing itself each year. Sounds like a horror movie to me.
[I assumed total military personal was about 2,278,000 & US pop was 322,000,000. General suicide rate came from CDC. All quick back-of-the-envelop cals but magnitudes right & puts things in perspective a bit for me]
A well-prepared military, both active and reserve, is as essential as police, fire protection and emergency medical services.
ReplyDeleteI call BS on this statement.
The United States did not have a real standing military until the First World War. When the Second World War started in Europe, there were less than 250,000 active duty, reserve duty and National Guardsmen including the Filipino Army.
Now there are possibly as many as 3,000,000 people on the government tit permanently as "military." Less than 10 percent of those people are or ever have been in "combat arms."
I was Regular Army during the Vietnam war. When I came back, I went to the Pentagon to get my orders changed. I was staying at the closest hotel. When I went into the bar, dressed in formal uniform, all of the sudden all of these Pentagon based admirals and generals were buying me drinks.
They had never even met an enlisted person that had actually been in Vietnam.
My two drafted buddies died in Nam. These career had never even been there. Why should they not be given a rifle and put in the paddies?
You want to stop war dead, put the generals and admirals in the front line.
No argument from me.
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm just trying to shift the Overton Window.
Actually, our constitution prohibits a standing army.
ReplyDeleteFrom Article 1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power...
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
Please visit www.draftresistance.org for more info on the draft.
ReplyDelete