1,892

[CreepyOldDude]

The wars increased suicide among deployed personnel. Plus the economic crises made the recruiters' job easier, despite the wars.

From my position I see three broad groups of military suicides: during deployments the Fobbits (people who don't leave the base and have too much time on their hands) are the main source of suicides. After deployments it is the trigger pullers. They can't fit back into civilian life. Then it is in the Vet community (along with active duty members after a longer period out of the sandbox compared to group 2). The article discusses these guys well.

I lost a couple of friends that way, who rotated out before I did. We all had plans to get together in Old Forge, PA, for pizza. It was the one thing we all agreed was worth traveling from all across the country for. After we were all stateside, we did it. But four of the guys never made it. They'd all eaten a gun, at some point.

I always considered myself damned lucky I never had PTSD, although we didn't call it that, back in the day. And there were so many vets in my family, that if you chucked a rock at the family reunion, you'd hit a vet. They were all available to help me, and the couple of my friends who were nearby, deal with stuff. We could respect them, because they'd seen the same $#@!, or maybe even worse. At least we didn't have to deal with something like Auschwitz.

[Doublejack]

We have a worker with PTSD from Desert Storm

It's a toss up between giving him some leeway or reprimands when he doesn't show up or he $#@!s up.

He's still in a mindset that when he talks about combat (which is rare) he says it was "cool" but he's clearly carrying a lot of pain. His brother told me some horror stories about what he's dealing with.

Tough spot, I couldn't imagine.

[CreepyOldDude]

We have a worker with PTSD from Desert Storm

It's a toss up between giving him some leeway or reprimands when he doesn't show up or he $#@!s up.

He's still in a mindset that when he talks about combat (which is rare) he says it was "cool" but he's clearly carrying a lot of pain. His brother told me some horror stories about what he's dealing with.

Tough spot, I couldn't imagine.

Yeah, it was bad enough during Nam. In a weird way, I feel like we got off kind of lightly, compared to some of what I've heard from others, from other wars.