Army Chaplain, the human dimension of the soldier, and suicide

[120mm]

Personally - I'm getting sick and tired about all the hand wringing, mandatory training, and force-fed info about suicide.

Especially since the folks who push it are a combination of the perpetually hyper-sensitive weepy types, and the risk averse PC - bull#### types who push it not because they give a crap, but because suicide in their unit would make THEM look bad.

We will never win a war because we have a low suicide rate. Or high suicide awareness, whatever the hell that is.

I think this issue is overplayed. Way overplayed. And stuff your "but every life is precious!!!!" crap. Frankly, to me, suicide is the ultimate act of self-centeredness.

And suicide is a symptom, not a cause. But by consistently treating the symptom, we can receive absolution for not solving the cause.

Suicide awareness has been so completely over-sold that it has reached the level where it has become background noise, and frankly, just another training distraction, imo.

[Schmedlap]

We will never win a war because we have a low suicide rate. Or high suicide awareness, whatever the hell that is.

There have been a whole lot of things that I did as a leader, not because it was essential to winning a war, but because it was simply the right thing to do. Taking care of Soldiers who got their limbs blown off and checking up on them even after they separated comes to mind. They'll never help us win another war - they can't even serve - but so what?

Frankly, to me, suicide is the ultimate act of self-centeredness.

Again, so what?

And suicide is a symptom, not a cause. But by consistently treating the symptom, we can receive absolution for not solving the cause.

Suicide is the act of killing one's self. I don't think there is any attempt to treat people who exhibit the "symptom" of being dead. We generally treat those people by burying them.

Suicide awareness has been so completely over-sold that it has reached the level where it has become background noise, and frankly, just another training distraction, imo.

I would have agreed with that, prior to leaving the Army. But once I left I noticed some important differences between civilians and Soldiers in terms of suicide. For example, I never heard a Soldier say anything that includes the phrase "kill myself" or something similar. I hear it almost everyday now. Law students are notorious for self-pity; for thinking that their easy lives are tough because they have to read stuff and go to class. I cannot count the number of times that I have heard them say something along the lines of, "this writing assignment is a nightmare - I just want to kill myself." If a Soldier were to say something like that, he'd have his chain of command and perhaps a Chaplain asking what the problem is. And for good reason. A Soldier's life actually is sometimes stressful.

If this suicide awareness stuff were implemented in junior high schools, then I would agree with you - it would be a lot of time and energy for a relatively small problem that has little chance of being solved. But in the Army, we know who the most likely people are to kill themselves, what the warning signs are, and how to intervene. Is it so terrible to make sure people are aware of those things?

[MikeF]

Hi Tammie, thank you for your contribution.

120mm/Schmedlap- I believe that there maybe a common middle ground within your opposing views. I'll see if I can articulate.

I would have agreed with that, prior to leaving the Army. But once I left I noticed some important differences between civilians and Soldiers in terms of suicide. For example, I never heard a Soldier say anything that includes the phrase "kill myself" or something similar. I hear it almost everyday now. Law students are notorious for self-pity; for thinking that their easy lives are tough because they have to read stuff and go to class.

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.

I will concentrate on the soldier or survivor mentality.

Back in high school football, we learned early on the difference between being hurt and injured. If you were hurt, you could still play. If you were injured, then you could not play. The Army breeds a similar mentality- suck it up. Every solution is a measure of controlling your world. Pain is good. Back at Bragg, the remedy for overcoming soreness after a 10 mile run was to run a fast five mile.

The survivor mentality can lead to unrealistic expectations in a traumatic environment- particularly war, buddies dying, etc.. One is indoctrinated to control one's environment. How does one cope when obstacles/realities are outside of one's control? I believe this is the crux of many combat stress related problems we're seeing today. In treatment for TBI, I observed many a Vietnam veteran who spent forty years sucking it up. Instead of commiting suicide, they thrust themselves into work to compensate for their perceived difficiencies.

I've given some thought as to why the suicide rate is so high in the recruiting field. I think the answer lies in this scenario. Dude redeploys after 2-3 tours. He has a struggling marraige, he is grieving the loss of his fallen, and he is trying to understand/validate the nature of the world that he lives in. Plus, he maybe trying to figure out where his twenties or thirties went and what the hell happened to his country while he was gone.

He receives orders for recruiting duty- "a break" from the line. The family packs up, and they move to Houston, Phoenix, or whereever. Expectations are high for quality family time and reconciliation.

Instead, he begins working 13-14 hour days with unrealistic goals of enlistment quotas. He feels like a failure when he cannot coerce/convince young people to volunteer to serve. He didn't really say goodbye to his unit, and now he is left without his buddies. His wife is frustrated because he is never around.

He begins to isolate, compartmentalizing his feelings like he did to survive combat, begins drinking/drugging, and finally falls apart.

Eventually, he is found dead.

I may be off target, but I don't think so. That's why I would agree with 120mm that the suicide rate maybe a symptom of a larger mental health phenomena.

To cope, the Big Army will have to have radical acceptance of the real issue- seeing it for what it is not what we wish it to be. Moreover, it will take a comprehensive, holistic solution from chaplains, commanders, and the mental health specialist.

It can be done. I suppose that it must be done.

That's my 2 cents.

v/r

Mike

[Schmedlap]

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.

[Stevely]

And suicide is a symptom, not a cause. But by consistently treating the symptom, we can receive absolution for not solving the cause.

I agree with Schmedlap (and others) but I can sense where 120mm is coming from. For own part, the frustration comes from the way our society - in this day and age - tends to deal with problems like this, from a therapeutic mindset, that tends to look at the issues in superficial, modish ways, like seeing it as a lack of self-esteem, and so forth. I think this kind of thing tends to overlook the deep cause.

Suicide can be caused by things like clinical depression, which goes back to a physical cause like a chemical imbalance in the brain (in which case it's a referral to the psychiatrist), or it can come from deep existential problems a soldier faces. The despair that can lead to suicide is often the result of a serious spiritual disorder, that requires grappling with a spiritual void, and that is precisely a job for the chaplain.

So you're a chaplain Tammie, and not a social worker. How do you approach this problem from a religious standpoint? Or do you?

[davidbfpo]

I have re-opened this closed thread from 2009, which had 6k views, to add the next post.

There are other threads that feature chaplains or padres, but this thread is the best place even if suicide is not an issue.

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to Kings of War for introducing an officer, using an American pseudonym and the Editor in part explains:

The institutional chaplaincy is an enduring part of the military experience, and yet it more often than not goes unconsidered or unexamined in the larger scheme of getting on with the work of an army, navy or air force. However, given the latitude and roles which chaplains can exercise, this may be a mistake. At the very least, nothing done within the military setting should be ignored, no matter how seemingly irrelevant it is to the main effort. Worse, lack of due consideration may either miss critical opportunities to use a capability better or avoid critical and damaging misuse. So, read the piece, ponder the place of the chaplain in your experience and organisation, and join the discussion on Twitter at the hashtag.

Link:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2016/04/ccl...ns-on-padres/?