Quote Originally Posted by MikeF View Post
Schmedlap precisely describes the distinction between civilian and military thought; however, psychologists would suggest that both mentalities are potentially unnerving and unbalancing. They use the example of the victim versus the survivor. The victim is helpless to his/her circumstance. The survivor is determined to make it right. Neither one is healthy.
Not to detract from Mike's post - very good input - but I realize that the point I intended to make is different from the one that I conveyed.

In the civilian world, saying that something is so bad that one is going to "kill myself" is just common hyperbole. In the Army, we were conditioned to not take such statements lightly. We didn't say them. One of the reasons for this was so that if someone truly was pondering suicide and they were to say something along the lines of "I'm going to kill myself" then it would not be taken as mere common hyperbole because we all knew that it was a warning sign and needed to be reported. It would be taken seriously. Generally, only someone truly pondering suicide would utter such a statement and it became both easier to spot and more likely to be reported. I never heard anyone say such a thing in the Army - and, coincidentally, no unit that I was in had any suicides - and I attribute the fact that I never heard such a phrase uttered directly to the "suicide awareness" programs. My point is that suicide awareness is not just some time-wasting, mandatory briefing that we sit through like EO, racial diversity, or sexual harassment (Does a multi-ethnic, all-male infantry unit really need these? I don't think so.) It serves a specific function and accomplishes that function, in my opinion, with a relatively small time commitment.