Comments on: The media again goes after the military

By: ymarsakar

ymarsakar — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:14:45 +0000

Japan turned a vice into a virtue. Whereas Christianity attempted to prevent suicide by religious means, Japanese Shintoism simply transfered suicide into “hara kiri”. Instead of allowing a person to decide that he has had enough, now is the time to die and go away, Japan ensured that both the death was painful as well as ensuring that it is only used to remove dishonor when no other method could do it.

Ritual suicide is ritual for a reason. It is so that spontaneous suicide is replaced and decreased by it.

In Japan’s Age of the Warring States, death truly was lighter than a feather while duty was heavy as mountains. Your duty to your feudal lord is far more important than your own life. This is almost the exact opposite of American tradition, which values your own life almost above anyone else’s.

Of course, the two different philosophies are not as different as you may think. The Japanese say that you must die before admitting failure, because if you live after a defeat, then you would have failed in your duty to your feudal lord and your own personal oaths. You would thus, be dishonored in the eyes of your family, clan, and lord. Thus the Japanese would look towards a soldier that surrenders as an oath breaker and coward. “Do your best” is a Japanese popular saying, whereas here it is “Good luck” and in Iraq it is “inshallah”.

On the other hand, Americans believe, they don’t say, that you must be alive to maintain your loyalty and your promises. Dying is pointless, since your duty is to make the other SOB die instead. Staying alive is, thus, far more important than a Banzai charge that would be ineffective. Thus when defeated, Americans accept the notion that soldiers can surrender with honor, since those soldiers are more valuable to us alive than dead.

Ask any HRC cogs about the differences between cultures in relation to treatment of soldiers in war, and the best you can probably expect is the stare of the fanatic and the zealot.

Which is why you probably don’t want any HRC type organization retards near your prisoners or your enemy’s prisoners.

By: ymarsakar

ymarsakar — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:02:08 +0000

Which means devoting time to do something again

See, Book. The media is already affecting the preventive and treatment care given to soldiers over suicide. When they have broken it down and wrecked it enough, then their story of “higher suicides” will come true and then they will tell you that they were right the first time. Just like with Vietnam.

By: SGT Dave

SGT Dave — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:21:01 +0000

All,
I’ll just put in my two cents. Suicide has always been an issue in the military – our overall rates are much lower than the average but the ratio of attempts to successful suicides is about triple the national average. Military members have numerous stressors outside combat – until recently the average tour length was 2-3 years. This meant that a career military member would see roughly eight moves (basic training, advanced training, and six posts) during their first twenty years. The Army is moving to six year “stabilization” tours, which would bring things down to five moves during a twenty year period.
Check the number of suicides tied to “life changes” and add in the stress of transition with pending retirements and/or discharge. Marriage stress is a killer (mine has suffered quite a bit; we’re going to do a family vacation when I return and try to do a retreat to reconnect) – and many military members marry quickly and young, causing further stress because of immaturity.
There is a large support chain available (I should know, I’m a Task Force Suicide Prevention Officer!) including chaplains, trained prevention personnel, and of course the sergeants that interact with everyone every day.
Now I have to get ready for a brief from the Chaplain and the command suicide prevention rep – it appears the story has enough legs to worry the commander here. Which means devoting time to do something again – since I’ve spoken with all the leaders and over 2/3rds of my task force on how to get help and letting them know I care. (You don’t want to hear the jokes about why they named me the SPO.)
Anyhow, in my experience most soldiers don’t have the tendency to suicide – the problem lies in access to highly lethal materials (we all have rifles or pistols and ammunition at hand) in cases when it becomes overwhelming. Most military cases come literally “out of the blue” – a single letter, missed anniversary, or a stress-filled, frustrating day makes the idea pop in – and they act decisively. The good news is that most of the time the first act is to talk to a battle buddy or a sergeant. And usually we get them thinking about what happens next and get them derailed and into help.

I’ve meandered again – I need to get back to work.

SGT Dave – “The best way to keep the suicide rate down is to identify people at risk, take them out back, and shoot them. This is why we chose Dave for the position.” (attributed to one of the task force team leaders)

By: Synova

Synova — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:47:03 +0000

The higher suicide is probably due to a lack of spousal support the stress of being separated and infidelity.

By: ymarsakar

ymarsakar — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:27:00 +0000

(Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

The suicide rates for civilian demographics are much higher, Book. You don’t have the support mechanism of the military or the military brotherhood or the spousal support of soldiers either in the civilian. When a teenager goes into depression, it’s a crapshoot whether the necessary help is available or not.

By: ymarsakar

ymarsakar — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:24:45 +0000

I’m not quarreling with the numbers for last year, which equal 121 individual tragedies. Nor do I challenge the fact that the number of suicides has been rising.

Given what is going on in America against soldiers and Marines, why wouldn’t their suicides refuse to rise, Book?

The media, of course, does not admit that their actions are violent actions. They are only reporting the facts, Book. Their hands are clean, if you ask them.

By: ymarsakar

ymarsakar — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:23:08 +0000

When the Left, the Democrats, and their media lapdogs say “violence never solves anything” they are only talking about killing violence. Emotional violence, verbal violence, indirect violence, and all other kinds of violence, so long as it does not kill directly, is recognized and accepted by them as being very at solving things. Demonstrated by the media’s acknowledgement that if they do violence to a faction’s image, that faction will weaken and go away.

By: Media Mythbusters Blog » Blog Archive » The media again goes after the military

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Bill's Bites — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:05:08 +0000

2008.01.31 Politics and National Defense Roundup

This post will grow as the day goes on. Don’t forget to check back later. Worth clicking today: U.S. Commanders in Iraq Favor Pause in Troop Cuts Michael Yon: Men of Valor: Part VII of VIII The media again goes after the military Israeli High Court Af…

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