Friday, March 30, 2012
US needs to keep up with mental health status of troops on case by case bases
The US military needs to do a better job of evaluating and caring for mental health among our troops. When a soldier enlists, they are promised adventures life, full of travel, and benefits for them and their family. Recruiters generally leave out the ever present possibility you going absolutely nuts after all the atrocities you witness. We need to closely monitor troops mental health, not only because they deserve a healthy mind, but for the safety of their fellow soldiers, and the people they're defending. Soldiers have a long history of mental health problems such as ptsd, depression, anxiety, and alcoholism. Many homeless people are in fact veterans, and if the system gave them the attention they deserved, maybe fitting into society after intense combat might help them live easier. Humans are known to react violently after watching friends die, or seeing a child catch a bullet. Ptsd can through someone into a terrifying and violent hallucination. It is our responsibility to make sure they're mentally fit to hold a weapon. The most recent insident of a soldier going AWOL is of Army Staff SGT Robert Bales, a decorated war veteran who shot and killed 17 Afgans, nine of which were children. Bales had been in legal trouble for his anger before, and had suffered a serious head injury recently. In days previous one of his buddy's also lost their lives. I'm convinced that if we kept better track of his mental health record, maybe we could have saved the lives of those people, and also his as he could face the death penalty. None of this is new, last year Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan killed 13, and injured 32 people when he opened fire in Fort. Hood. This is serious stuff, we need to start taking better care of the people who take care of us. This isn't Bales fault, it's ours, and after the Taliban gets revenge, believe me more than 17 people will lose their lives.
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This editorial about caring about our troops participating in the war really got me thinking. I completely agree with the points that have been made. Us Americans spend so much time "supporting" our troops, but really, what are we doing to support them? I know there are acts in which we do, by supplying them with things they need, prayers, honoring their efforts, etc. But overlooking all of that, how are THEY feeling inside? Don't we need to support them as human beings just as much as we support their efforts to protect America? I have seen first hand a soldier who suffered from PTSD. I actually got to talk to him, he was a family friend, and he could not get over the things that he had seen while overseas. He got really involved into alcohol to attempt to blur out those dark images in his mind. It's sad, really, what they go through that we don't even know about. Maybe America could step up and provide free counseling, or group-therapy for all soldiers dealing with coming back to society but still dealing with the trauma they had experienced. It is true, we need to start taking care of the people who do their best to take care of us. Soldiers need to be in the right state- physically AND mentally. Without both of those, I feel as though that person could be a danger to many.
ReplyDeleteI like the point you make about checking soldier’s mental health before they even get accepted into the military. It also sparks a question though, could it be that the military doesn’t care about the mental health of the new coming soldiers? In the end all they want is as many troops as they can, so it could be that they know that it should be done but ignore it. About keeping in check the mental health towards soldiers once they are already in the military I believe is pointless. Who wouldn’t be mentally affected when there isolated from their families, having to kill people and having all this horrible images in their head? It’s just impossible for them to not be affected. To me it would make more sense to give the soldiers a guaranty that they will get help after they have served there duty, but even then I’m not a hundred percent positive that they will live without any mental damage. Many of the people that sign up to be in the military have an idea of what they’re getting into, there have been stories on the news about how soldiers don’t get what is promised to them and it is not new news. If you know for a fact the disadvantages of joining the military, why do it?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.truth-in-recruiting.info/