Why is the suicide rate among veterans so high? Did other warriors from ancient times also committed suicide frequently...

Why is the suicide rate among veterans so high? Did other warriors from ancient times also committed suicide frequently? Is there any mention of things similar to PTSD/ War trauma in ancient literature?

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Q. Did the ancient peeps spit on their warriors when they returned from battle like they do in the us of a?

A lot of people join the military in hopes of dying an honorable death. When that fails, they just commit suicide.

Modern war is more stressful than in ancient times

PTSD (shell shock) is the result of concussive trauma to the brain, suffered by proximity to explosions. It cropped up in the first World War for a reason.

Rotten leadership, that is really what it is. Officers just care about one thing, getting to the next rank, they dont give a shit about their soldiers under them and they will step all over them or throw them under the bus if it means career advancement.
PTSD has always been present but PTSD is not why most soldiers commit suicide.

>Modern war is more stressful than in ancient times

yeah nah, I'd rather get shot/blown up than stabbed any day

>t. afghaniland vet

Lindybeige has already done a whole video on this

youtube.com/watch?v=FDNyU1TQUXg

this was just the excuse doctors came up with at the time to explain something that they couldn't medically diagnose.

Wrong, all this muh feels and muh morality is crap. Patton understood this when he slapped those two cowards in Italy.

Concussive brain damage is still a prevailing problem in soldiering.

Most societies of past were warrior cultures. When you're raised since birth that war is good, you end believing in that.

The current western society is a merchant culture. The soldier is just a tool.
Very few actually want a good death

well... yeh aussie bro, twas the foundation of empire. A bunch of thieves, scum and villainry sent off to the godforsaken corners of the globe.

warriors from ancient times received admiration from their fellow countrymen instead of disdain. also they were mostly fighting for things they believed in and not the jews

that doesnt make any sense at all. if you value an honorable death why would you choose to go out in the most dishonorable way

Yeah but back in the day you came home a hero to your wife and 20 kids who tended to the farm while you were away.

People join the military, they're gone for a few years, and they come back to things 10x worse than when they left

Suicide is honourable though.

All warrior cultures considered it a brave thing.
One of the ways to enter the Valhalla according to germanics

In ancient times there weren't really good ways to kill yourself and everyone was used to it.

Agreed.

Suicide is honorable though in many cultures, what are you talking about?

This meme needs to end. Veteran Suicide per 100,000 is virtually same as the civilian ratio.

google.com/amp/www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/02/02/but-there-isnt-an-epidemic-of-suicide-in-the-us-military/?client=ms-android-att-us

In the past, when you won at war, you'd take home the spoils (sex slaves from wives and daughters of the deceased, gold and valuables etc.).

All Vietnam vets were allowed to take home was a heroin addiction lol. War stopped being worth it when universal human rights became a thing. Fuck risking your life in a Jew war for no real reward.

Wut.
I'd rather not have limbs hacked off while I was wide away screaming because someone stabbed me with a dirty blade.

War is just not for everybody, OP. Things you see on the internet is not the same as seeing them in real life.

They're fucking cowards

Civilians vastly outnumber the number of military members.
in the U.S, we have a pop of some 300+ million, only 1.2 mil

Back in ancient times, soldiers weren't worried about making rent, if they still had a job, faggots back at home protesting worldwide conflicts, didn't have to worry about their spouses fucking around behind their back and taking half their shit, didn't have to worry about health care leaving them with their dicks in their hands, etc.

All they had to worry about was the fight in front of their faces.

because people aren't raised to be killers anymore

the transition from normal peaceful dude to murder machine can do strange things to a persons mind.

>didn't have to worry about their spouses fucking around behind their back and taking half their shit
Not true, that happened frequently.

PTSD makes you suicidal and depressed it's as simple as that

>Did other warriors from ancient times also committed suicide frequently?
probably not, because when they went back home they had a culture, family, and job security to give their lives meaning.

not a word of this is true though.

But they could cut their legs and arms and left them to die in the dirty afterwards.

Cheating was considered worse than murder in most of Europe

Your retarded they had to worry about getting food and not dying off from disease. We have it easy compared to them your just sheltered neckbeard.

PTSD is like depression, there are a set of symptoms that can indicate you are suffering from it but you are not suffering from it until you are told you are. Humans can handle anything and move on even while suffering, unless they are told that it is a terrible thing they are suffering from and that they cannot move on. In modern society, there is no talk of war and no outlet for soldiers to discuss it. All they have are doctors telling them they are damaged and family who is scared to talk to them about it. So many soldiers are wrestling with things that become all-consuming simply because they can't talk about it and don't see it reflected in their lives anymore.

But let's be honest. Soldiers kill themselves because their wives cheat on them, rape them in divorce court, and won't let them see their children. Their wives have no patience for a worn out soldier, and they take their love to town. In the old days, your social support couldn't just abandon you on a whim.

PTSD was known long ago. They called it soldier's heart.

The fuck are you talking about? Romans regularly plunged swords and daggers into themselves. It was a distinct ancient cliche. Socrates swallowed hemlock.

This. It depends on its society and culture, but nevertheless something happened recently.

A shift, a change occurred in the 20th cent so radical that it probably started the slow death or even a slump in western civilisation.

Fucking WW1 was hell on earth.
Nowadays its not so bad, but modern warfare is hell on the psyche if a regular fighter.

Well up to WW1 war was horrible and you had people who couldn't deal with the stress, but it happened less because wars where smaller in scale, a typical ancient or medieval battle would last a few hours.

Today we ask months or years to a man to fight in a environment where Machines are in control of the battlefield.

Adultery was pretty bad to men as well contrary to popular belief.

>Welfare queens
Should have gotten a real job instead of going on welfare.
They get what they deserve in the end.

Bump. This is an interesting question.

...

Other warriors died in battle like they were supposed to.
Our cucks come home and do it themselves after finding their wives with other men.

What are you talking about? Military personnel are the most respected members of society in this country.

Everywhere my military friends go literally everyone is thanking them for their service, giving them free shit and sucking their cocks despite the fact they've never even seen combat and work desk jobs.

>some people did it so it was widespread

Seriously kill yourself.

Empathy for the enemy. Most veterans I know feel bad for the things they had to do. I've helped convince some that there is literally no reason to feel bad for killing the enemy.

Although, some did bad things to kids. That's a lot tougher. But logically thinking about it - the less kids in the enemy, the least threat in the future. So even then, no reason to feel bad.

How many times have we seen the call for the death of white babies from leftist radicals? They don't feel empathy for the enemy. Our soldiers shouldn't either.

sure thing chaim

Check out Sebastian Junger's "Tribe", OP.

I am not sure if this story in completely accurate. But it did push some strings in my heart. Soldiers do what is necessary.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwm0UEGQWjE

Because you come back from serving to live among a society of worthless sheep afraid of their own shadows, content to live with a collar around their necks.

Ancient warriors took shrooms and shit. Plus life was just radically different.

People who have killed other people and have been forced to consider the possibility of dying and killing in the same moment tend to be perfect zog machines

The enemy was at home all along.

Once the veteran returns to civilian life they realize they were duped on false promises when they have to start life from scratch at ground zero

It's also the fact that you come to face the reality that everything your buddies/yourself sacrificed and did was for these people and the broken society they created while you were living in another world entirely. It makes you kind of want to die honestly, I think about dying a lot but suicide is for pussies.

Pic related does an extremely thorough job explaining exactly why this happens and it is a mix of a bit of everything mentioned in this thread.

Essentially:
>Discover a phenomenon from journals, war accounts, observers, etc where many soldiers throughout recorded war refuse to kill each other
>Firing rates in WW1 and WW2 were only about 20% of soldiers
>Military doctors, analysts etc discover that people have an extremely strong aversion to killing members of their own species and only about 25 percent of us are capable of doing so without conditioning
>Change training techniques from simple drill and command using circular targets to:
>Man shaped targets, dehumanising the enemy, putting as much mental and physical distance between the soldier and the enemy as possible
>Firing rates in Vietnam go up from 20% to 90%

In regards to the veteran suicide issue:
>In previous wars Veterans receive support and decompression time from/with their unit
>Rotation back into civilian life took much longer (literally taking a boat back across the ocean) and allowed for members of the same unit/ army to vent and console one another etc
>Civilian population accepted that right or wrong these men had gone to fight and were to be respected understood that they had to kill other people or be killed
>Allows for the relief of guilt
>People need to have some kind of coping mechanism for killing someone IE any justification whether the cause is good or not

This changes in Vietnam

(1/2)

My guess. A lot more % of soldiers died on the battlefield and som to do with the stigma of suicide back then and religious beliefs. It's also more talk about it so people get ideas

The average rate for suicide among veterans is up to 22 a day. Spread that across only 1 percent of the American population and it's huge.

This is interesting, post more

This guys is right. The human mind is better at dealing with a clear battle fighting alongside his mates than it is at dealing with the constant stress of being shot or blown up, day in and day out.

continue

I'm sure they loved some pencil necked cuck patting them on the back for killing children and lecturing them about the consequences of war

(cont)

Vietnam will make you hate baby boomers more than anything else in regards to how they treated Vietnam Vets

>US soldiers in Vietnam unprepared for guerrilla war
>Vietcong uses child soldiers, women and un-uniformed combatants
>No clear distinction between enemy civilian population and enemy forces
>Creates feelings of intense guilt and anguish among US forces as they cant discern between enemy soldier and civilian
>Zero decompression time between Vietnam and return to States (sometimes within a single day between taking fire and being sent home)
>Many didnt have a choice in going to fight
>Instead of being welcomed by understanding civilian population they are spit on
>Literally spit on and treated with contempt by shiftless drug addled hippies
>Called babykillers by people who have no idea what being in combat is like
>Media denies this is even happening
>"Hanoi" Jane Fonda goes so far as to try and use everything in her power at the time to discredit US soldiers testimony of torture at the hands of Viet Cong among
>No way to deal with guilt
>No support systems in place

A quote from one veteran:
"A couple stopped me and asked if I had lost my arm in Vietnam. When I said yes they replied:
'Good. Serves you right' "

>Have to petition the government to get a memorial because the fucking hippies think the average grunt decided to invade Vietnam

Due to a mixture of many of these factors and the fact that there was an antagonistic home populace many Veterans couldn't and still cannot handle the stress of killing another human being.

This is exemplified by veterans from WW1 and WW2 onward who despite being elevated to heroic status feel or have felt immense guilt for killing a man who was trying to do the same to them.

Aren't the numbers roughly the same when adjusted for the general population?

Anyhways, have you met a lot of soldiers? Honestly a lot of them are just inherently damaged goods before -- soft, troubled childhood, or downtrodden losers. They join for so many wrong reasons. I grew up near a Marine base and I can't tell you how dumb and backwards most of those guys were. They're weak-willed bumpkins who get a dose of reality.

Look at the WW2 generation like my grandfathers -- they came from poverty but were like toughed leather before they hit adulthood. Their need to serve was for a greater good and wasn't some odd testosterone fueled indoctrination. They did their service and left.

I think it's a large part to do with the fact that a lot of ancient civilisations were warrior societies were being a warrior wasn't just some thing you did when you turned 18 and joined the Army it was something that they trained for since day dot. We as a civilised society are brain washed to believe violence is bad and are punished for it, death makes us uncomfortable and mental trauma is met with an over emotional response in this current day.

Back then people were bred to fight, war was a way of life from a young age, violence was celebrated, the weak were shunned and the strong were enlisted and fought and were rewarded. Nationalism was a given, people wanted to die for their country and they believed in it, same goes for religion.

People go to war now, they see fucked up shit and they come home a wreck. Why?
Because they believe what they saw and done was inherently wrong.

Our generation is pussified, emasculated and weak.

fuck you beat me to it lad

It's true. Before you would do some marching, have a brief but intense period of fighting, then go home afterwards. Now, when you march, any second an IED could go off and kill you. Or a sniper could end your life. When you're in a battle, it lasts days or even weeks, with constant artillery fire around you in the brief respites between fighting. You no longer have control over whether you live or die, before you could survive if you were skilled enough, but now it's just a matter of being two inches to the left when that bullet flies past you.

My guess would be because combat is a major red pill. Remember a lot of people in the military were barely 18 when they enlist, or just got out of highschool when they enlist. They're still children mentally. Now they're bound by contact to do the governments dirty work, put through training designed to strip you of basic human emotions and responses, then shipped to bumfuckanywhere to fight impossible fights.

Assuming they survive, they're usually beat up physically, they come home to people who demonize them, politicians from both sides stab them in the back at their convenience, and all for what? For somebullshit ideal that isn't respected or upheld? So Americans have the choice to bitch about their problems on an image board? So we have that freedom to kill ourselves with gluttony? So we can obsess over a dead gorilla for months on end? So we can spend our lives on pointless pastimes and watch the Kardashians?

Seriously, just watch TV for a few hours. That alone makes me wanna kill myself. If I was tricked into giving up the best days of my youth to face the ugliest displays of humanity to protect that shit, yeah, I'd be among the dead.

Soldiers would go years without seeing home in earlier wars. Modern day soldiers can't stay longer than 2 deployments in a given time to go home and see their families (1st world countries). I call bullshit.
IED subject is nonsense, it was far easier to ambush and conduct far greater casualties earlier platoons than you can now.

>>Media denies this is even happening
WHY?? what they could have won by denying it?

Tfw wars are already fought on image boards with frogs and propoganda

Future wars will be like the stuxnet virus and cyberweapons and robots will rule space and cyberspace

Get paid 20 k for killing civvies

guilt baby

>Their need to serve was for a greater good and wasn't some odd testosterone fueled indoctrination. They did their service and left.

Most were drafted.

I get your point, but get real dude.

>hasn't read on war
>hasn't read on killing
>spent 9 months scoping AF babes on rt Disney
>Afghanistan vet

You need to learn some shit.

It might just be that we've humanized the enemy far too much. We constantly talk about how terrible it is to kill another human being, instead of making it no big deal when it is a terrorist like previous generations have done. As for the PTSD that comes from a fear of dying, it might just be because we send them out too young, or not prepared enough. Medieval knights used to love the thought of going into battle, they would often unwisely charge through their own lines to get to the enemy. Maybe we should stop training our soldiers to be citizen soldiers and start training them to be fanatics.

Basically become a jew
And think anyone who isnt you is a gentile/degenerate
Be like the jews Programmed from day 1 to fight the threat
We must do better for the next generation

No it comes from getting rocketed and mortared every day for a year, spending every third night pulling a 12 hour guard shift and every other day outside the wire being hunted by rag heads who constantly have their beady fucking eyes on you but you rarely see them. Then one day you just fucking blow up.

Really is this kind of low intensity burn that just drives you nuts. The amount of times you almost die starts adding up until you're just waiting for the real deal. You go back to the states and you're still waiting. Sometimes for years. Sometimes for your whole life.

Speaking of Jews, does pol think Israeli's are based? Not all Jews around the world, just the Israelis.

Oh, that sounds bad. Maybe we could go all WW2 Japanese and just love the thought of dying to kill those muslims, but otherwise I'm not seeing a real solution here.

>Why is the suicide rate among veterans so high? Did other warriors from ancient times also committed suicide frequently? Is there any mention of things similar to PTSD/ War trauma in ancient literature?

I'd say I think about killing every Every few minutes. I have dreaming about pulling pieces of teeth, ears, lips out of my hair and ears every night and wake up screaming. Fireworks make me act like a gorilla in a cage.I jump at small movements that startle me and it is embarrassing, my hands jump on their own and I spill hot drinks. .

I'm going to go to Hell in all likelihood and I wish I had not done what I did and stopped some things from happening but I was young and stupid.

There is no out.

Lives in ancient times were just as rough as the wars they had to fight. 20th and 21st century society allows easy living with little stress or problems so the results of fighting in a war flips a modern person's shit upside-down

In a lot of ways people would just rather have a big ass fight and get it over with. Playing cat and mouse for a year isn't fun when there's even odds you're the mouse.

The majority of military suicides are by "soldiers" that had prior mental issues before enlisting, and then kill themselves as a result of being actually expected to perform a duty, as opposed to being treated like a special snowflake in the civilian world.

Yeah, it's too bad that we can't force them to fight like that. Quick question, how much does the rules of engagement negatively effect the war against terrorism?

Bullshit.

>The majority of military suicides are by "soldiers" that had prior mental issues before enlisting, and then kill themselves as a result of being actually expected to perform a duty, as opposed to being treated like a special snowflake in the civilian world.


I expected nothing. By the way, I only stated having nightmares and jumping at imaginary shadows after about 10 years after.

Enjoy your ride. Hope you bought the ticket and you'e all strapped in.

The ROE wasn't the issue.

Using a conventional force was the issue.

You can't expect to stop organized crime with uniformed police, because they can see you coming a mile away, and the same thing applies to an insurgency.

You win an insurgency with low profile units and cash....lots of cash. Not with conventional soldiers.

isn't this thinking what got us isis?
And other moderate rebel groups
Nevermind you're talking about Blackwater mercs

I sleep like a baby, nigger.

I see. So basically our insurgents vs their insurgents, but with a buttload of money going towards intel and informants on our side?

>Nevermind you're talking about Blackwater mercs

No, I'm talking about SOF, intelligence agencies, and state department people.

>IED explodes under truck in front of you
>burning people running from wreckage, gunfire, grenades, airstrike
not bullshit

Yes.

CASH is what drives an insurgency.

Especially a tribal insurgency like in A-stan and Iraq.

basically the asshole who calls the guy on the ground to get into some bullshit so the guy in langley can get all the credit
What a time to be alive

Been there, done that, nigger.

Brownie points
But they were probably funded by the same interests who fund CNN, BBC, the guardian, and etc, today.

How do we insure that our insurgents don't turn against us like with Al Qaeda?

Cheaper and more effective than a conventional infantry battalion, with all the supporting assholes required to keep them operational.

ROE was never too big of a deal. We did have one time it kind of fucked us.

The real bummer was the mission sets. Lot of guys just did endless traffic control points, presence patrols, and meet and greets with local leaders. You're pretty much just bait in all those scenarios. The number of times we had to run the last half mile back to base because we were getting mortared is too many to count.

Also having Pakistan being a safe haven for the fuckers wasn't cool. Afghanistan would have been totally winnable without them and the CIA stabbing us in the back every chance they got.

When you get insurgents on the payroll, you find out who they are, where they live, who they're related to, and if they fuck up, you kill them.

Tell them about how the isi funds those beautiful operations in the land of elders

I couldn't remember who did that video, but it was what I was thinking about.

Funny, because I jump on every upload he posts.