Marines, Left Behind By Psychological Mumbo Jumbo

"New top Marine Corps general releases plan to shake up the service" in the Washington Times report by Dan Lamorthe had this piece of information in it from Marine Corps Commandant General Joseph F. Dunford Jr.

Dunford also calls for changes at home. While attending boot camp “changes a person forever,” he said, the service should explore adopting new psychological testing for recruits to make sure they are capable of not only becoming a Marine, but successfully completing their time in service. “We will quickly assess the efficacy of available psychological screening tools currently used by special operations forces, law enforcement organizations, and industry,” the general said.

“The end state is to enhance the quality and resilience of the force – thereby making us more combat ready.”

There is a PDF of what the General thinks.

"The term Marine is synonymous with young men and women who are disciplined, smart, physically and mentally tough, and who remain always faithful to each other and to our Corps."

RAND Corp did research on this resilience theory and the difference between what the leadership was told would work up against what actually happened.

"An important distinction between approaches to promote resilience, as compared with traditional medical interventions,is the emphasis on prevention as opposed to treatment.

The research on psychological resilience has not been in a form that can be used easily by the military to identify which factors are informed by scientific evidence.

Prior to Department of Defense budget cut talks, the Marine Corps planned to reduce troops from 202,000 to 186,800 to accommodate a post-war Marine Corps. Due to budget changes and the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan, however, that number has been cut to 182,100 Marines, reducing the ranks by 19,900 men and women.

The force reduction will take place over the next four years. The Marine Corps will reduce its active-duty strength by about 5,000 Marines per year from across the Marine Air-Ground Task Force.

Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James F. Amos has stressed that the resulting force of 182,100 Marines will retain the capacity and capability to support current and possible crisis response operations through rotational deployments.

Less serving but suicide numbers not down enough to account for the reduction. This came out in June of 2014 on Marine Corps Times

According to the 2014 data, there have been 70 confirmed and suspected suicides by Army soldiers; 34 by airmen, 21 by Marines and 36 by sailors. In the same time frame last year, there were 81 suicides by soldiers, 24 by airmen, 25 by Marines and 24 by sailors.

The total number for 2014 so far — 161 — is still sharply lower than the 200 reported by this time in 2012.

Enough said about "resilience" training? Hardly, because this does not include the veterans who were discharged and no longer counted by the military.

The latest release of information on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is that the rate of them committing suicide is triple their civilian peer rate.

This is nothing more than psychological mumbo jumbo!