Analysis Of Suicide In The Trenches

Among American civilians, whites have historically and significantly led the way in the rates of suicides. Although leveling off after the 1990’s, the rate of white suicides has still been almost twice as much as minority groups. It has also been shown that males commit suicide significantly more than females.

Stressed by war and long overseas tours, U.S. soldiers killed themselves last year at the highest rate on record, the toll rising for a fourth straight year and even surpassing the suicide rate among comparable civilians. Army leaders said they were doing everything they could think of to curb the deaths and appealed for more mental health professionals to join and help out. Clearly, the military is going above and beyond to try and prevent further lives from being taken.

There are many issues within the military organization that require focus and resolve in order to maintain the superior fighting force that protects the homeland. Unfortunately solider suicide is one of those issues. Suicide is the deliberate taking of ending of one’s life. It is often associated with a severe crisis that does not go away, or may worsen over time (Warning Signs, n.d.). This issue requires knowledge and training to help protect fellow soldiers. The military organization has decided that required annual training be conducted to every person wearing the uniform. The goal of this training is to increase awareness of suicide risk factors, warning signs, and how to provide intervention to at-risk soldiers.

Ever thought about our soldiers and veterans and why they are diminishing so quickly? I would soon find out for myself about a disorder that is causing this diminish and how much it is being overlooked. The summer of 2014 would be a summer I would never forget. A family friend, a caring, energetic and happy boy would soon choose to take his own life. Some one you always saw and would make sure you were okay. Never in a million years would I have ever thought twice that a disorder would ever take him ever. I left out that he was a soldier. Serving his first tour and seeing things he would’ve never expected to see. He came back home lucky for us safe and sound or at least we thought. Soon we would see that he wasn’t himself and see things change.

Fighting for justice in “Revolutionary Suicide” presents two conflicts between suicide and salvation. In Oakland California around 1970, African Americans were being so mistreated that a movement was created to fight for black power which is known as Black Panther Party. African Americans were going up against the police and government of the racist south. This was a time Jim Crow laws had just ending along with segregation ,but that dosen’t mean that the whites of the south still didn’t have the same intentions they used to have about blacks. Which lead to many confrontations that resulted in death or injury causing revolutionary suicide. In poem “Revolutionary Suicide,” The style of the poem is built of a cause and effect. First, the speaker addresses that having nothing causes him to have everything .“By having no family I inherited the family of humanity …By having surrendering my life to the revolution I found internal life.” Readers can get an impression that the speaker would make a great leader. Especially when he tells the audience that he is willing to sacrifice himself in order to gain revolution. The speaker is confronting the opposition letting them know he is not afraid of death nor them. He also writes this in the poem

There is a common belief that many combat veterans are suffering; many from invisible wounds that affect them in many ways. The challenge that the VA and other government agencies face is determining which veterans need help, there are several factors that affect this, from the individual’s desire to accept help, to the stigma that most veterans have accepted, which is “if they ask for help, they are weak.” During separation from the military it is a critical time for all soldiers, this time provides an opportunity for the military, the VA and our government to intercede and work with men and women while they are still soldiers. Veteran suicide is an epidemic, the number of veterans taking their life daily has been steadily growing, the statistic published by the VA is that twenty-two veterans end their lives every day (Suicide Data Report, 2012); steps have been taken to curb this number but the efforts have been woefully inadequate.

The psychologist Sigmund Freud once said, “Because every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise; it forces the individual into situations that shame his manhood, obliging him to murder fellow men, against his will.” He initially stated this when he was corresponding with Albert Einstein via letter. This quote is also a great explanation of the events that take place during war that people chose to not recognise. War is terrible, and no matter how hard we try, nothing will change that. Erich Maria Remarque shows us that soldiers have endured dreadfully throughout World War I in his book “All Quiet on the Western Front”. The character in the book, Paul Baumer, endures through the tragedies of war with some of his old schoolmates as well as new comrades that he meets along the way. They survive through all of the tragedies together, but in the end, the war made them lose their friendships as well as their lives. The reality is that war comes with consequences while it destroys people, and there is nothing that will ever be able to change that. The book “All Quiet on the Western Front” shows how war comes destroys people's lives with its consequences through three of its themes: the importance of comradery, the loss of innocence, and the horrors and brutality of war.

According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, (2015) veterans comprise 22.2% of all suicides. The suicide data reports of 2012 estimated 22 veterans commit suicide everyday (Kemp & Bossate, 2012). Evidence-based studies show one of the major reasons behind the large number of veteran suicides may be related to undiagnosed mental disorders such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Department of Veteran Affairs reports, “8 percent of the five million veterans using VA care have been diagnosed with PTSD” (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2014). This gap in mental health treatment among veterans negatively affects our nation as a whole. It is our duty to implement policies that provide a better quality and quantity of mental health services for the soldiers that

The early mornings when you are awakened by the sound of a bugle call, to gather for accountability and to salute the red, white, and blue American flag to start your military day, brings you a sense of fulfillment and a smile on your face. When you are in the United States military you are a part of an organization that becomes your family, because you live, breathe, fight, and die for your country. When you join the United States military you are broken down mentally and physically, so that they can build you up to protect and serve your country. In the United States military your weapon is the love of your life, because you eat, sleep, train, and kill with your M16 rifle, but who could

The amount of combat soldiers who commit suicide is often shown an extreme expression of PTSD. {Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry}. Phil Harvey and Lisa Conyers- coauthors of "The Human Cost of Welfare." has mentioned that " We'll give you enough for a reasonably comfortable life, but we won't help you find a job." {latimes.com} Unemployment for these brave men when coming home is also a big problem. It's not easy for these men to find a job after their deployment because people often seen the Veterans as

According to Dr. Mike Haynie, the Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families, “22 military veterans today commit suicide in this country one every 80 minutes[...and]in recent years, more veterans have died by their own hand than service members lost to the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan” (Haynie). On a typical stance, many Americans would disregard this shocking statistic as merely a myth or a folktale. In reality, however, this statistic illustrates the “blind side” of America; it illustrates the assumption people unknowingly draw about veterans and the pain they actually suffer from war. It is these very veterans to whom America gives its support and blessings; it is for these very veterans that the

The poet Wilfred Owen was one of many poets who were against war. He reflected this idea of anti-war in his poems, one of his poems called “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, mirrors most aspects of war all put together in this short still deep poem. An example of that would be when the speaker stated,” What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”(1) The speaker asks is there any sound that marks our soldier’s death other than the sounds of church bell’s which are mostly rung to represent somebody’s absence? Clearly, the speaker sets anger as the tone of the poem through this question to show that soldier’s death is unremarkable.. The speaker compares the soldiers to a “cattle” which illustrates that soldiers are treated more like animals with no feelings and also shows how they are killed indiscriminately in war. Finally the line ironically contains an iambic pentameter which is a natural rhythm for such dark, grim, dull subject. The two novels, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, and All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, both present a similar idea of how soldiers are killed out there in the front comprehensively and the dehumanization of war towards its soldiers. The first novel is set during the Civil War, and it focuses on the psychological aspects of one soldier named Henry Fleming and how his naive thoughts about war constantly change through the course of the novel. The second novel presents the life of a soldier named Paul Baumer and his

The military is one of the most culturally diverse employers in the world, therefore it is hard to identify a specific target population at a higher risk of suicide. However, from the research conducted by Kemp and Bossarte (2012) the data shows white male veterans between the ages of 50 and 79 were more likely to commit suicide than any other race, gender or age group. Additionally, the periods in which the veteran served also plays a huge role in veteran suicide, where the data shows Vietnam veterans are significantly at a higher risk for suicide (Kemp & Bossarte, 2012). It must be said, there is research which shows there is no statistically significant increases in suicide mortality among Vietnam veterans when compared to other war era veterans (Bossarte, Claassen, & Knox, 2010). The research conducted by David Lester (2005) shows there are several reasons for this. First, America engaged in the Vietnam War without the approval, of the United Nation (Lester, 2005), causing a nation to become divided. The war was meet with mix views and opinions however, veterans from Vietnam were not accepted or appreciated by the general public around the world, and here in the United States. These veterans were protested

Twenty-two United States Veterans commit suicide every day, giving approximately one thousand seven hundred and eighty Veterans deaths due to suicide for the year of 2016 to date (“Operation Never Forgotten”). Veteran suicide is an ongoing problem because veterans enter the civilian world directly after receiving discharge from the armed forces and struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and acute stress, and anxiety (“Veterans ' Services”). Veteran suicides have become a large concern for members of the United States Armed Forces, Operation Never Forgotten (ONF) is an organization that is helping veterans find purpose and a reason to live, by working with the U.S. Congress, they could pass a law

When asked to describe a United States veteran, a couple words that come to mind are courageous, powerful, and strong. This is an accurate assessment of a soldier because it takes immense bravery and pride for one's country to leave and fight not knowing whether you will return. However, when soldiers are done serving their country their minds are in a chaotic state. Out of the recent veterans returning from the Middle East, only half of them seek out help, and out of this half, forty-eight percent are diagnosed with a serious mental health issue( Mental Health Effects). Twenty percent of soldiers coming back from the middle east are diagnosed with PTSD, along with twenty five percent of the troops