Related info:
– U.S. Navy SEALs Ordered To Remove ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ Symbol From Uniforms (Video)
– US Special Ops forces committing suicide in record numbers (RT, April 19, 2014):
US special forces have been committing suicide at record levels for the last two years, the head of the US Special Operations Command (SOCom) admitted in a speech on Thursday. He blamed the high numbers on the length and difficulty of combat.
“There is a lot of angst. There’s a lot of pressure out there. My soldiers have been fighting now for 12, 13 years in hard combat. Hard combat,” Adm. William McRaven, the head of SOCom, said at a conference in Florida. “And anybody that has spent any time in this war has been changed by it. It’s that simple.”
Since the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, military troops – including special forces units like Navy SEALs and Army Rangers – have endured multiple deployments. Military suicides increased across the board during that time, to the point that suicides (349) outpaced combat deaths (311) in 2012, according to a Guardian analysis in 2013.
McRaven did not give the rate of military suicides in his remarks to the GEOINT Symposium, an intelligence convention in Tampa organized by the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. SOCom declined a request by the Tampa Bay Times to provide the figures that McRaven alluded to.
In January, McRaven directed the formation of a suicide-prevention working group to address the unique needs of the elite troops that make up SOCom, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
“The welfare of these brave service members and their families is critical to our command’s readiness and our ability to accomplish the mission. It is also a moral imperative,” McRaven said in a congressional testimony in February. SOCom’s head detailed steps that the command is taking to provide psychological help to its special forces, including embedding behavioral health professionals throughout the command’s units.
SOCom wants to eliminate the stigma of seeking help. McRaven reflected on the difficulties that Vietnam veterans faced when they returned home in the 1970s during his Thursday remarks. “We’re not going to make that mistake this time around,” he said. “We’re going to put everything we can into making sure we’re taking care of these kids and their families.”
“It is about the readiness of my force,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’ll find the right weapon…But I’ll tell you, if we don’t have a force that’s resilient, that is healthy, that can do the job, none of that equipment is going to matter.”
The US government tracks military suicides through the Department of Defense Suicide Event Report (DoDSER). From 2008 to 2010 – the last year data was available for the analysis – military suicides were nearly double the number of suicides for the general US population, with the military averaging 20.49 suicides per 100,000 people, compared to a general rate of 12.07 suicides per 100,000 people.
When including veterans, not just active and reserve-duty troops, the government estimates that 22 veterans died from suicide each day in 2010. In that year, 147,763 suicides were reported. Over 27,000 (18.3 percent) of those suicides were committed by people with a reported history with the military. The veteran status of another 34,000 (23 percent) was unknown.
SOCom is made up of 66,000 troops from all military branches. Special forces are deployed in over 75 countries, according to McRaven’s February testimony.
See also:
– SEAL Team 6 Was Set Up (Video)
– Families Suspect SEAL Team 6 Crash Was An INSIDE JOB
– Navy Seal’s Father: Obama ‘Set Up My Son To Be Executed!’ (Video)
– U.S. Government’s Secret Move To Hide Files On The Osama Bin Laden Raid
– US Navy Seal Commander, Who Killed Osama Bin Laden, Commits ‘Apparent Suicide’ In Afghanistan
Flashback:
– U.S. Military Awarded Contracts To Taliban And Al-Qaeda In Afghanistan
– Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: The Osama bin Laden Myth
– Why Was A Sunday Times Report On US Government Ties To Al-Qaeda Chief Spiked? & Gladio B
– ‘GLADIO, THE LIVING PROOF THERE IS NO AL-QAEDA, NO WAR ON TERROR’ – ‘GLADIO Is AL-QAEDA’ (Veterans Today)
Just one month after this article, published in the Guardian, Robin Cook DIED:
– Al Qaeda Doesn’t Exist or How The US Created Al Qaeda (Documentary)
– BBC: Al-Qaeda Does Not Exist (Documentary)
– President Bush Rejects Taliban Offer To Surrender Osama Bin Laden (The Independent – 15 October 2001)
FYI, I have known a number of special forces guys. Many of them do commit suicide, it is a job of assassination, little more. I had a friend who was one, who was ready to end it, instead gave it up and changed his life. Today, he is a successful lawyer and teacher, and grateful he was able to change his life…..it took many years, but he did it.
It is a dreadful job, and it is for those who are violent by nature……as he was in his youth…….and many are not as fortunate as my friend. He decided to live, but many do not, it is too bleak, and lacking in hope.
I recall watching a ‘fly on the wall documentary’ following two Special Forces high ranking officers given recruitment targets.
They ran an Army Recruitment Office in a Mall in Georgia.
Following Dubya’s deceitful 911 ‘War on Terror’ not enough cannon fodder were joining, so these two hard faced boyo’s set off to all low level areas of the city to carpetbag suitable loose end, aimless, no hoper young black kids.
They’d case areas for days, watching drug deals, burglaries, car thefts, and draw up a list of ID’s. as suitable targets.
These youngsters were as innocent and dumb as the day is long, but hey!, who cares?
They promised them pots of money, a secure pension, steady income, see the world, all exes paid….bloody marvellous compared to the future they seemed to have.
The boyos’ impromptu comments about the prospects for these kids was so defamatory as to make anyone cringe. They really were just cannon fodder.
This was numbers, not skills or abilities.
Does anybody know the real number of deaths/serious illnesses of US military from the effects of DU? Of course not. Cannon Fodder.
The realisation they have been paid a pittance & sent to kill off ordinary decent people for the benefit of the rich, powerful useless parasites who dictate world policy, so a Nation’s assets can be pilfered, will test the worth of any right thinking person, let alone a simple grunt out there in the face of it.