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

[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?