The military has had an insane approach to preventing Combat PTSD

The military has had an insane approach to preventing Combat PTSD and reducing suicides. The money spent has gone up but so have the numbers of attempted and successful suicides.

You know it is bad when you read a post intended to be satire but does not seem too impossible to be true. A post on The Duffle Blog tried to show just how ridiculous the approach to suicide prevention has been. The truth is for a couple of seconds it did not seem like a joke.

Fighting Suicide: Marines Try Posthumous Non-Judicial Punishment
Duffle Blog
BY G-HAD
8 JULY 2013

CAMP LEJEUNE, NC – In what is being described as the toughest new anti-suicide policy in the U.S. military, the Marine Corps has announced that Marines who commit suicide will now automatically receive formal non-judicial punishment and possible administrative separation from the Marine Corps. Any Marine who commits suicide will be charged following August 1, the drop dead date for commands to implement the new zero-tolerance policy.

“If you kill yourself from now on, it won’t just be a warning or a negative counseling, but an Article 134 per the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” said Sergeant Mark Davis, a spokesMarine at Camp Lejeune. “And if that doesn’t work, we may have to move to an automatic administrative separation, based on a refusal to train, come to work, or breathe.”

The Marines hope the program will slash suicides in half by the end of the year.

Under current policy, a Marine who attempts suicide can be charged with disrupting order and discrediting the Marine Corps; if on deployment, they are also automatically removed from the rolls of the fallen and any unit memorials. However, some commanders feel that policy does not go far enough.

“For years, we’ve told Marines about the automatic loss of Serviceman’s Group Life Insurance Benefits, as well as forfeiture of leave and liberty privileges,” said Sergeant Davis. “But we have yet to see a noticeable drop in suicides as a result.”

Some Marines have blamed the suicide problem on recent attempts by the Marine Corps to remove the stigma of the act, an approach which they say has repeatedly failed. In a complete reversal, the new program will also attempt to increase that stigma as much as possible.

“Why should I have to attend a suicide prevention brief, when I’m obviously alive?” asked Lance Corporal Tim White, an artilleryman with 1st Battalion 10th Marines. “If the Marine Corps really wants an effective program, it has to be aimed at Marines who have already killed themselves.”
read more here

Common sense tells us that when suicides and attempted suicides go up, what they have been pushing has not worked. It is insane to believe otherwise yet that is exactly what the DOD has been doing. We should all be asking how the heads of the best military in the world are unable to use common sense.

INSANE mentally disordered : exhibiting insanity, used by, typical of, or intended for insane persons (an insane asylum) absurd (an insane scheme for making money)

People have been making money off the suffering of our troops just as they have been making millions off suffering veterans. Little has worked yet they refuse to stop funding these people. They have been rewarded with more money and absolutely no accountability.

SANITY: the quality or state of being sane; especially : soundness or health of mind

Want to know more? Read THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR