This 0-5’s death caught my eye when the story ran on the nightly news recently. It saddens me if it did have to end in this way for the man. I got a lot of respect for the work the Teams do and I was supposed to shadow them on missions but I failed one of my eye exams…I might be relegated to desk duties now.
[quote]Legionary wrote:
Only a fuck like you would try to politicize this tragedy. You are either a brilliant troll or a complete imbecile.[/quote]
Get over yourself spor. I’m not all bad and you and I agree on more than we disagree. I mean you and I like women, running and lifting right? I like typing ideas on forums how about you?
From
Your favorite clandestine operative
Jimmy Bond
[quote]conservativedog wrote:
[quote]Legionary wrote:
Only a fuck like you would try to politicize this tragedy. You are either a brilliant troll or a complete imbecile.[/quote]
Get over yourself spor. I’m not all bad and you and I agree on more than we disagree. I mean you and I like women, running and lifting right? I like typing ideas on forums how about you?
From
Your favorite clandestine operative
Jimmy Bond
[/quote]
It’s S-P-Q-R, which stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus (“The Senate and People of Rome.”) Get over myself? For someone of your supposed profession, you sure are rather nonchalant about the self inflicted death of a highly decorated combat veteran, enough so to take pot shots at the current administration. Forgive me if I have more respect for those willing to put themselves in harms way for you and I.
[quote]Legionary wrote:
[quote]conservativedog wrote:
[quote]Legionary wrote:
Only a fuck like you would try to politicize this tragedy. You are either a brilliant troll or a complete imbecile.[/quote]
Get over yourself spor. I’m not all bad and you and I agree on more than we disagree. I mean you and I like women, running and lifting right? I like typing ideas on forums how about you?
From
Your favorite clandestine operative
Jimmy Bond
[/quote]
It’s S-P-Q-R, which stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus (“The Senate and People of Rome.”) Get over myself? For someone of your supposed profession, you sure are rather nonchalant about the self inflicted death of a highly decorated combat veteran, enough so to take pot shots at the current administration. Forgive me if I have more respect for those willing to put themselves in harms way for you and I.[/quote]
I think it’s fairly evident he’s full of shit about his profession.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]Legionary wrote:
[quote]conservativedog wrote:
[quote]Legionary wrote:
Only a fuck like you would try to politicize this tragedy. You are either a brilliant troll or a complete imbecile.[/quote]
Get over yourself spor. I’m not all bad and you and I agree on more than we disagree. I mean you and I like women, running and lifting right? I like typing ideas on forums how about you?
From
Your favorite clandestine operative
Jimmy Bond
[/quote]
It’s S-P-Q-R, which stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus (“The Senate and People of Rome.”) Get over myself? For someone of your supposed profession, you sure are rather nonchalant about the self inflicted death of a highly decorated combat veteran, enough so to take pot shots at the current administration. Forgive me if I have more respect for those willing to put themselves in harms way for you and I.[/quote]
I think it’s fairly evident he’s full of shit about his profession.[/quote]
Yeah. He does have some mean meme skills though. Maybe he is a convicted master hacker that pays off his debt to society working for Uncle Sam? lol
[quote]Legionary wrote:
[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]Legionary wrote:
[quote]conservativedog wrote:
[quote]Legionary wrote:
Only a fuck like you would try to politicize this tragedy. You are either a brilliant troll or a complete imbecile.[/quote]
Get over yourself spor. I’m not all bad and you and I agree on more than we disagree. I mean you and I like women, running and lifting right? I like typing ideas on forums how about you?
From
Your favorite clandestine operative
Jimmy Bond
[/quote]
It’s S-P-Q-R, which stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus (“The Senate and People of Rome.”) Get over myself? For someone of your supposed profession, you sure are rather nonchalant about the self inflicted death of a highly decorated combat veteran, enough so to take pot shots at the current administration. Forgive me if I have more respect for those willing to put themselves in harms way for you and I.[/quote]
I think it’s fairly evident he’s full of shit about his profession.[/quote]
Yeah. He does have some mean meme skills though. Maybe he is a convicted master hacker that pays off his debt to society working for Uncle Sam? lol[/quote]
Little spelling nazi’s… like I’ve never seen Spartacus or Gladiator. For a 21 year old you sure spout off a lot.
“A self inflicted death of a highly decorated combat veteran.” I wrote if it was a suicide “makes me heartsick.” Like you knew him personally, you little shit.
Kid stick to the supplement forum. Better watch how you mix your milk with creatine. I tried to smooth it over with you, but I’ve had my stomach full of you snot nosed shits on here. Bunch of liberal fuck ups. Just out of school and you have the world figured out. Keep voting your future away kid, you deserve it.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]batman730 wrote:
Very sad. My heart goes out to his family and the guys in his command.
We are definitely failing to provide combat vets with the support they need in the wake of what they endure on our behalf. I don’t know the answers, but I am ashamed of the current state of affairs.[/quote]
I agree. Having to listen to some of my good, very good combat vet friends…it’s sad. Angering, and ssd.
And there’s a reason: the psychs the Army (and most other armed forces) sends are fucking desk jockeys. Theyve never seen combat in their lives, they dont fucking know how to deal with it or how to ask questions to somebody who actually HAS been there…repeatedly. You tell me how many fucking tour vets or spec operators are going to open up to a damn monkey in a uniform that sits behind a desk all day pretending “he knows what it’s like” Answer–news headline in this thread.
Its fucking disgraceful.
This is firsthand knowledge btw, coming directly from people I know that have led and killed, and had to send soldiers to see the head docs. Theyre pissed about it too, as you probably can imagine. You can’t help shit if you have no experience “in the shit”, to guys with huge personal walls up…[/quote]
Yeah I remember watching a brief interview with the Canadian Forces sniper who, at one time, held the record for the longest confirmed kill shot. He had since left the Forces in favour of policing. He didn’t have a lot to say on the subject, but his attitude toward the military and its treatment of vets was pretty evident if you were able to read between the lines at all.
I would never presume to know what it’s like for these guys, what would drive one to end his own life or what they really need in the way of support, but the idea that the set up you are describing in your post is remotely workable is just ridiculous. Anybody with an ounce of common sense can see that. Of course these guys are pissed. They should be. We (the cake eating public) should be. It’s unacceptable. That our troops are a greater danger to themselves than the enemy is to them is beyond tragic and nobody really wants to talk about it in any meaningful way. These guys are not fucking disposable.
I know informal group therapy sessions proved helpful for guys returning from WWII (I believe it was). As I understand it they were born out of necessity as there were simply massive groups of young men returning from combat with crushing psychological trauma having rendered them basically non-functional. There simply weren’t nearly enough “professionals” to treat them. Somebody got the idea to put these guys together with other guys who had been there, done that and allow them to hash it out/debrief/process with each other under a minimal amount of direction from a counsellor/moderator type. It was the birth of the support group, really. Not sure if it’s really applicable or if similar programs still exist or if they are culturally acceptable within that community to freely access (I kind of doubt it), but it seems somewhat reasonable to me and supposedly it was fairly successful.
Like I said, I don’t now the answers, but it needs to change, and PDQ. It is, as you said, fucking disgraceful, and the shame belongs to us, the public IMO.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]musashi707 wrote:
Surprisingly, a recent Army study found the rates of suicide amongst AD operators are actually on par with the rest of our ground forces being actively deployed. Not that it matters… it’s just plain sad and frustrating that more than 10 years into this conflict cycle, suicide rates are climbing not falling. You would think we could have started to figure how to help these guys out by now. [/quote]
It makes one wonder how much of a priority it really is.[/quote]
Fig leaf.
I have an amazing idea though.
How about not getting guys with an average IQ of 140 and an enormous amount of discipline and willpower into situations that lead to them doing things that break them emotionally.
Now I am not a psychic, but I dont think they kill themselves because they did some ugly shit.
They probably kill themselves because they can no longer tell themselves that they did so for a good reason.
[/quote]
I agree with this.
[quote]Karado wrote:
…one reason they had all this energy was they didn’t eat all the crap americans eat,
and that can make all the difference in the world…they aged better.
[/quote]
LOL. The only daily ration in the Roman army(if they were lucky enough to be provisioned) was corn which the men were required to grind themselves with portable hand mills. Starvation was commonplace in ancient warfare and the main tactic of siege warfare was to starve out the enemy(e.g. Alesia 52BC, Jerusalem 70AD) and/or cut off his water supply(e.g. Uxellodunum 51BC, Ladysmith 1899-1900.) Armies lived off the land when they could by foraging. Skirmishing over foraging grounds was a daily event.
This was commonplace right through the Napoleonic Wars - see Prince Eugene’s army in Italy and the American Civil War. Starvation and malnutrition caused mass casualties in the Galipoli campaign in 1915. British provisions consisted of ‘Bully beef’(tinned beef) and virtually inedible biscuits with jam and tea. Men dropped like flies from dysentery and enteric fever. Not including fresh troops, 77% of men were emaciated and 64% were suffering from indolent skin ulcers(Purves-Stewart report.)
“We were down to skin and bone. Dysentry just ate away our intestines.” - Bill East in Maurice Shadbolt, Voices of Gallipoli
I’ve never looked into what form of therapy was available to returning troops after WWII, but I have heard there were more accounts of ‘shell shock’ from Pacific returnees than European ones. Perhaps because after the European theater ended, a good portion of the troops remained there long enough to transition from a combat mindset back to a peacetime one.
I think it is also noteworthy that back in the day (as recent as 20 years ago), the military image of SEALs/SF was of hard training, hard fighting, hard partying men. They went out, did the job, and then came back to blow off steam. Hard drinking and minor shenanigans (from a legal standpoint) were a way to relieve stress, and while looked down on by the conventional force commanders, was swept under the rug with a nod and wink.
Boys will be boys, and all that. Then, in the early-90s (right before I joined), there was a definite culture shift away from that. Special Operators were expected to go out, do the dirty work, then come home, bottle it up, and act as if they just returned from a training trip. As has been said above, no matter how hard or driven an operator is, no one can bottle that kind of stress up for too long. It will find it’s own way out.
[quote]conservativedog wrote:
… Then again with this administration nothing would surprise me regarding highly secretive missions, men of his expertise and knowledge and sabotage.[/quote]
And I’ll bet you had NOTHING to say when Bush invaded Iraq.
Yeah, THIS administration is to blame for all the suicides.
Hypocrite
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
[quote]conservativedog wrote:
… Then again with this administration nothing would surprise me regarding highly secretive missions, men of his expertise and knowledge and sabotage.[/quote]
And I’ll bet you had NOTHING to say when Bush invaded Iraq.
Yeah, THIS administration is to blame for all the suicides.
Hypocrite
[/quote]
And what did you say when Obama launched an unprovoked attack on Libya, toppled Gaddafi who had been an ally for a decade and toppled Mubarak ushering in the Muslim Brotherhood? Perhaps Obama’s dick in your mouth prevented us from hearing you.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]RampantBadger wrote:
Sad news.
What struck me was his age, 42.
Seems a bit old for such frontline shenanigans. Maybe there should be something like a 10 year limit for these kind of jobs[/quote]
Actually it is pretty average. Maybe a bit on the older side, but within range of average for spec ops. You are not even allowed to apply for Delta force unless you are over 30.
Spec ops command is a bit of a different animal.[/quote]
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you have to make at least Captain or Major before trying out; most officers make captain before they’re 30. But you are correct - spec ops is definitely take a bigger psychological toll on the personnel.
CS
[quote]CSEagles1694 wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]RampantBadger wrote:
Sad news.
What struck me was his age, 42.
Seems a bit old for such frontline shenanigans. Maybe there should be something like a 10 year limit for these kind of jobs[/quote]
Actually it is pretty average. Maybe a bit on the older side, but within range of average for spec ops. You are not even allowed to apply for Delta force unless you are over 30.
Spec ops command is a bit of a different animal.[/quote]
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you have to make at least Captain or Major before trying out; most officers make captain before they’re 30. But you are correct - spec ops is definitely take a bigger psychological toll on the personnel.
CS[/quote]
Sergeant on the enlisted side if I’m not mistaken.
[quote]Legionary wrote:
[quote]conservativedog wrote:
Well if it is an actual suicide that makes me heartsick. Then again with this administration nothing would surprise me regarding highly secretive missions, men of his expertise and knowledge and sabotage.[/quote]
Only a fuck like you would try to politicize this tragedy. You are either a brilliant troll or a complete imbecile.[/quote]
Hey kid tell this father of the slain Navy Seal how much Barack Hussein Obama and the Clintons think of this his son and the man you think I dishonored. Politics my ass.
Everything is politics and when you learn that your eyes will be opened a little more. I bet you like those “dead fish handshakes” he mentioned he received from Obama at the memorial service. After you’ve worked your butt off for a commanding officer, hows a nice cold dead fish handshake to let you know they give a shit about your service.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/father-slain-seal-who-made-decision-not-save-my-son_657782.html
I am not shocked by this. Why would a SEAL experience less of this? the suicide rate has been rising in the military. None of us knows the stresses of his life, but one thing I do know is PTSD is by no means uncommon in the military.
You don’t know how that will effect you until you deal with it.
[quote]CSEagles1694 wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]RampantBadger wrote:
Sad news.
What struck me was his age, 42.
Seems a bit old for such frontline shenanigans. Maybe there should be something like a 10 year limit for these kind of jobs[/quote]
Actually it is pretty average. Maybe a bit on the older side, but within range of average for spec ops. You are not even allowed to apply for Delta force unless you are over 30.
Spec ops command is a bit of a different animal.[/quote]
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you have to make at least Captain or Major before trying out; most officers make captain before they’re 30. But you are correct - spec ops is definitely take a bigger psychological toll on the personnel.
CS[/quote]
You don’t have to be over 30. There isn’t an age requirement, there is a time in rate/service requirement.
[quote]gregron wrote:
[quote]CSEagles1694 wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]RampantBadger wrote:
Sad news.
What struck me was his age, 42.
Seems a bit old for such frontline shenanigans. Maybe there should be something like a 10 year limit for these kind of jobs[/quote]
Actually it is pretty average. Maybe a bit on the older side, but within range of average for spec ops. You are not even allowed to apply for Delta force unless you are over 30.
Spec ops command is a bit of a different animal.[/quote]
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you have to make at least Captain or Major before trying out; most officers make captain before they’re 30. But you are correct - spec ops is definitely take a bigger psychological toll on the personnel.
CS[/quote]
You don’t have to be over 30. There isn’t an age requirement, there is a time in rate/service requirement.
[/quote]
He said before they were 30. I was 25.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Karado wrote:
…one reason they had all this energy was they didn’t eat all the crap americans eat,
and that can make all the difference in the world…they aged better.
[/quote]
LOL. The only daily ration in the Roman army(if they were lucky enough to be provisioned) was corn which the men were required to grind themselves with portable hand mills. Starvation was commonplace in ancient warfare and the main tactic of siege warfare was to starve out the enemy(e.g. Alesia 52BC, Jerusalem 70AD) and/or cut off his water supply(e.g. Uxellodunum 51BC, Ladysmith 1899-1900.) Armies lived off the land when they could by foraging. Skirmishing over foraging grounds was a daily event.
This was commonplace right through the Napoleonic Wars - see Prince Eugene’s army in Italy and the American Civil War. Starvation and malnutrition caused mass casualties in the Galipoli campaign in 1915. British provisions consisted of ‘Bully beef’(tinned beef) and virtually inedible biscuits with jam and tea. Men dropped like flies from dysentery and enteric fever. Not including fresh troops, 77% of men were emaciated and 64% were suffering from indolent skin ulcers(Purves-Stewart report.)
“We were down to skin and bone. Dysentry just ate away our intestines.” - Bill East in Maurice Shadbolt, Voices of Gallipoli[/quote]
Sorry just history geek in me but corn wasn’t even introduced in the roman world
They called wheat corn, the Latin phrase translates to corn but it was wheat. The common roman provisions were bread and water.
Anyway it’s obviously a problem in the military that needs to be addressed. I lost a cousin to suicide from PTSD. They don’t come back normal and the military needs to help these soldiers out. They have done their duty to protect us and now we need to return the favor.