The Wars- Effects on Humans

War has always existed. Although the purpose of war varies, the outcome is the same; many lives are changed and ruined. War is often used to gain power, resources, and land, but it disregards the lives of those fighting the fight. Martin Luther King stated, “The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.” In three selections, “Medevac Missions,” “A Journey Taken with my Son,” and “At Lowe’s Home Improvement Center,” readers come to understand the truths of wars’ impact on the lives of those surrounding the soldier. Their friends change, their physical and psychological states change, but the hardest truth is adjusting to life back at home. Soldiers experience many life changes during active

A widely believed cause of this increase in suicides lies mostly on combat aspects. Being in the military is a lifestyle that is truly physically draining. The day to day life of being in the military is stressful. Multiple tours, increased stress, longer hours ‘repetitive deployments and much longer deployments, being away from friends and family more than in the past than in recent years can be believed to take a heavy toll on service members. The Rand Corporation issued in a report on military suicides that states that the US involvement in conflicts since 2001 has taken a toll on the service that has manifested itself in increased suicides. Dr. Brian Craig, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University Of Texas Health Science Center, says that it is not just the traumatic events but the day to day stressors of combat that cause problems. He is also the lead risk management advisor for the DOD Strong Star Research Consortium and found in his research that it is “not being able to sleep in a comfortable bed, not having access to warm,

We have all seen or read about the political and social upheavals caused by war. Some may have even experienced it first-hand. Throughout history war has had negative psychological implications on those effected. However, there is no greater negative impact of war than the psychological and emotional turmoil that it causes individual soldiers.

The Air Force lost 38 airmen to suicide in 2008, a rate of 11.5 suicides per 100,000 airmen. The average over the past five years — since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom — was 11 deaths per 100,000 annually. Of the airmen lost in 2008, 95 percent were men and 89 percent were enlisted. Young enlisted men with a rank of E1 to E4 and between the ages of 21 and 25 have the highest risk of suicide. Recently released data indicates that active duty males carry, for the first time in known history, a suicide risk greater than that of comparable males in the general population (Psychotherapy Brown Bag, 2009). This is particularly noteworthy considering that the military entrance process screens out serious mental illness prior to entry onto active duty, and that the rate of suicide in military males has historically been significantly lower than comparable civilian populations. To help

Perhaps attesting to the enhanced understanding of PTSD and alarm at the troubling suicide rates of veterans, the media seems to be raising the public’s attention about the condition, for example, through the use of documentaries. In 2005, during the second push of the Iraqi and Afghanistan war PBS FRONTLINE released a documentary entitled, “The Soldier’s Heart,” This documentary gives an overview of the history of PTSD, but focuses specifically on the psychological toll of the Iraq war. It illuminates the fact that despite advances in our understanding of PTSD, there continues to be a stigma against psychological problems in the

Since 2001, the Unites States Military has been engaged in steady armed conflict all around the world and soldiers are taking their own lives due to the stresses of combat. (Ramchand, Acosta, Burns, Jaycox, & Pernin, 2011). The mission of the Military’s Suicide Prevention Program is to provide an endless supply of family support, information, medical assistance, and training to soldiers and their families with the goal of preventing and/or reducing the number of suicides. Leaders at the state and national level put forth great effort to reduce suicides in the military which is a great concern. Policy makers and legislators are continuously updating regulations to provide service members and their families with the best resources to help with all forms of PTSD and suicidal tendencies. A major goal is to get help to the service member before the thoughts of suicide are

The psychological effects, the mentality of fighting and killing another human, and the sheer decimation of human values is what makes war atrocious. War is not only fought on the battlefield though. This book also describes the feelings of a soldier fighting his own demons that war has brought on. The battle that the soldier has with himself, is almost if not more damaging than the physical battle of war. He will never forget his experience with battle, no matter how hard he tries the memories of artillery, blood, and death cannot be erased. “I prayed like you to survive, but look at me now. It is over for us who are dead, but you must struggle, and will carry the memories all your life. People back home will wonder why you can't forget.” (Sledge). This struggle still happens to soldiers today. Sledge’s words of the struggles still captures the effects of warfare that lingers today. The other effects that war has on the men is the instability that surrounds them at every hour of the day. They are either engaged in battle having bullets and artillery fired at them, or waiting for battle just so they can be deposited back in the pressure cooker of survival. “Lying in a foxhole sweating out an enemy artillery or mortar barrage or waiting to dash across open ground under machine-gun or artillery fire defied any concept of time.”

Possible causes of suicide in military can include mental illnesses, sexual or physical abuse, addictions, failed relationships, financial struggles, PTSD, and traumatic brain injuries (Dao and Lehren). Six out of ten soldiers who committed suicide used a gun (Dao and Lehren). They obtained these guns from their own, to families, and even friends. This leaves these loved ones and the people who cared about them the most with lots o f unanswered

Authorities not even aware of the spike in suicides in the 2/7 deployment. The Department of Veterans Affairs said that they don’t track suicide trends amount veterans of specific military units. The resulting suicide rate for the group is nearly four times the rate for young male veterans as a whole, and fourteen times that for all Americans.

War can destroy a man both in body and mind for the rest of his life. In “The Sniper,” Liam O’Flaherty suggests the horror of war not only by presenting its physical dangers, but also by showing its psychological effects. We are left to wonder which has the longer lasting effect—the visible physical scars or the ones on the inside?

Every veteran of war you see went through something that changed them, either from their own experience or from their “brother’s” and in the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien it shows exactly what I’m talking about. While using the psychological lens, specifically, Maslow’s Hierarchical Theory of Human Needs and Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale, the reader can see in chapters “On The Rainy River,” “The Man I Killed,” and “Field Trip” that Tim O’Brien is emotionally unstable due experiencing the trauma of war.

An article from the New York Times written by Dave Phillips sheds light on the growing issue of suicide rates amongst military veterans. Dave Phillips does this by telling the story of fellow military men, through the eyes of one marine- gunner name Manny Bojorquez. Bojorquez, joined the marines at a young age of 19, one of the militaries most prestige combat forces. In 2008, the second Battalion, seventh marine regiment -also known as the 2/7- deployed to a mid-swath of Helnend providence. Bojorquez remembers this combat as one of the worst and most traumatizing combats of many marines’ lives. After experiencing these traumatic events, the agonies of war,

War is a dangerous game, many people would likely agree to this, however, very few have ever seen a battlefront. The truth is that war, no matter how awful we can imagine it, is always exponentially worse. In Timothy Findley’s The Wars, Robert Ross, the protagonist,­ faces a situation that he finds difficult to come to terms with, and when faced with a similar situation later on in the novel, he must take drastic measures to reconcile the uncertainties of the past situation. Timothy Findley suggests, through the life of Robert Ross, that one’s need to reconcile the uncertainties of past experiences dominate our actions when such situations come up again in our lives. In the words of Hiram Johnson, a US Senator during the First World War,

Statistics on suicide related behavior in the military are troubling. Following a stable suicide rate since 1977, military suicides increased in 2004 (Lineberry & O’Connor, 2012) and exceeded civilian rates in 2008 (Army STARRS). Current suicide rates per 100,000 among active duty (18.7), Reserves (23.4) and National Guard (28.9) remain significantly higher than that of the US civilian population (13.0) although more comparable to the US male civilian population (20.6). While accurate comparisons necessitate statistical adjustment to allow for the military’s disproportionately male population (Braswell & Kushner, 2010) the military increase is in sharp contrast to the stable civilian rate (Kessler, 2013). Active duty suicides (28.1%) further surpassed combat deaths (18.6%) in 2012 (MSMR, 2014). However, the decline of the OIF/OEF combat (Belasco, 2009) may provide a partial explanation.

Difficult situations arise almost daily in the lives of most individuals. When confronted with adversity, individuals are forced to deal with the circumstances in the best way they know how. People can reach a point where they can no longer deal with the effects of adversity in their lives. It is at this point that individuals have to make a choice, either to allow themselves to be devastated, or to rise above their difficulties and try to return their former sprit and identity back. In the struggle to deal with adversity an individual’s sprit and identity can suffer pain and uncertainty. The novel ‘The Wars’ by Timothy Findley exhibits that in the middle of adversity, individuals are