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.

During the Revolutionary War, 2/3 of the soldiers fight died from diseases like Dysentery, Influenza, Typhon, ect. Many soldiers starved and some, marched barefoot. In many wars soldiers got killed by friendly fire even. Some soldiers saw so much on the battle field they went crazy, suffering mental scars that led to psychotic breaks which may eventually led to suicide. As most of you already know, many veterans don't come back from the war, but some do, and those that do are usually never the same as they were before. Many people have made jokes about war flashbacks and it is actually very serious, in fact, studies show that recent veterans have a very high suicide rate compared to those who has never served in the military. But let's not

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.

For many years, the VA has offered health care to the men and women who have surrendered a large part of their lives to protect our nation. The VA has made great stride in providing specialized services to veterans such as Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Military Sexual Trauma (MST), and Mental Health treatment. In fact, the VA is leading the field on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) research, but now that many of our men and women are returning home from war, the commitment that the VA made to provide accessible health services and a smooth transition from military life back to civilian life to these heroes and their dependents are not being granted in a timely manner. Studies show that suicide among veterans is the number one leading cause of death in the United States and

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 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

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

Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. People in America often take freedom for granted because it is now the normal way of living in America. The U.S. military and their soldiers help keep our freedom on an international level. The soldiers that help keep our freedom often come back home with a myriad amount of problems that they must overcome. In order to help our soldiers Americans should vote for the right people for office to help the United States Department of Veteran Affairs to prevent soldiers of having financial, family, and personal problems that come from untreated physical and mental health problems to show their support for the U.S. Military.

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

The poet Siegfried Sassoon saw that war was destructive and it should not happen because it was a waste of human life, Sassoon described the horror of war unsparingly, also, his poems were often based on actual incidents. Wilfred Owen focused his poetry on the particulars of war and the men involved: dirt, muddle, boredom etc, Owen often wrote about the horror of war and the dignity of men. He deeply felt a sense of the appalling wastefulness of war, casualties and the human spirit. The similarities between these two poets are they both tried to record realistic horrors of the war; to have it stopped. They were both angry at the war’s brutality, they were also showed very compassionate studies of the circumstances of fighting men.