Army Suicides? Reporting Or Posturing?

Articles

Army Suicides? Reporting Or Posturing?

By Michael John McCrae
Aug. 21, 2007

The article is "Army suicides hit an all time high" by AP reporter Pauline Jelinek, as related in the August 17, 2007 edition of the Stars and Stripes.

A few comments and opinions need to be expressed.

First a question. Why was this article suggested, researched and printed? I believe the answer is that is just one article in a long string that attempts to place military service in a bad light among the American people. Whatever angle can be used to bring bad lighting to the war effort and force a reduction in recruitment will be used by the mainstream media (MSM) because it supports the goals of the liberal agenda of defeatism.

The column quotes "Army Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general" but the quotes seem somewhat manipulated. One quote was: "There is not a direct relationship so far between deployments...” which is followed out of quotation marks with the paragraph continuation "...and the rate of suicide in the Army". One is left to wonder about the full sentence and what was meant to be conveyed. The reporter completed the sentence and we are still left in wonder by what followed.

This first so-called quote is followed by: "Instead, she said, "we believe part of the increase [is due to] the increased stress on relationships..." again followed out of quotation marks with this continuation "...that is caused by the stress of deployments".

Reading the two paragraphs together and ignoring the insertions by the reporter one would believe Col. Ritchie doesn't know what she is talking about. If "deployments" are unrelated directly to the increase in suicides, how could the increase be "caused by the stress of deployments". I am left scratching my noggin.

It probably is news that the Army is experiencing a higher suicide rate than over the past "26 years", but the reporter writes this in her 10th paragraph: "Numbers provided by the Navy showed a gradual decrease in the number of suicides since 2003. The Air Force and Marine Corps numbers reveal no discernable trends. All four services have a lower rate than the U.S. civilian population, when demographics are adjusted to match the military's, according to the Naval Health Research Center ."

She takes nine paragraphs to get to the good news and the chart, accompanying the article shows fewer than one third of the 99 suicides (30) being those among soldiers having been deployed to combat zones.

Yet any supposedly good news concerning the military must be squandered or squashed by the perceptions and preconceptions of the MSM.

To quote the article: "Researchers also found a significant relationship between suicide attempts and the number of days deployed in Iraq , Afghanistan or nearby countries where troops were participating in the war effort."

But no matter how "significant" that relationship supposedly is that paragraph is followed by: "There was "limited evidence" to back the suspicion that repeated deployments are putting more people at risk for suicide, the report said."

So if the report declares the "evidence" "limited" in support of what is only a "suspicion", how is it "significant" at all?

This was followed by a factual, howbeit skewed sentence: "With the Army stretched thin by years of fighting the two wars, the Pentagon has had to extend normal tours of duty this year to 15 months from 12 and has sent some troops back to the wars several times."

As I recall, in America's previous declared wars, all soldiers were in for the duration and deployed "several times" to places like Africa, Italy, France, the Pacific, Asia and many other parts of the globe to fight against Nazis, Japanese, Italians, and their collective allies.

The reporter takes the flawed view that Iraq and Afghanistan and all the other places radical Islamism has reared its ugly 9th Century mentality and murder-ethic are somehow separate wars rather than merely separate battles against the same forces that have deployed over the breadth of the globe to kill infidels (anyone not Islam) and wage global jihad.

But I understand all this. To stress the point that the overall suicide rates among the military branches of the American Armed Forces "...have a lower rate than the U.S. civilian population..." would be to stress a positive aspect that does not fit the template of defeatism. Where are the articles showing us suicide rates within the American civilian population? What is Congress doing about the higher numbers there? What about the suicide rate within the radical Islamic community? Radical Islamists kill themselves at a much higher rate than that of American soldiers, the main difference being, American suicides do not cause collateral damage to schools, busses, public shopping areas or mosques!

My opinion is that all suicide is just another form of evil, barbaric murder. Each suicide is a sad episode of human history that adds no glory or worthy example to succeeding generations. To glorify suicide or simply to use suicide to promote a political position is cruel and unconscionable.

To have found and read the article alone probably would not have garnished a comment from me. Yet this was the banner headline of that day's Stars and Stripes: "Army sees increase in suicide rate" and that seemed to me just another slap in the face of each soldier trying to do his duty in the global conflict against terrorism.

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About the Author: Michael John McCrae has contributed over 700 articles to Useless-Knowledge.com.

Email: macswordV@hotmail.com

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