I damn near swallowed my tongue when I read this today.Not because it shocked me, but because it angered me and the people that did the study on it were probably shocked by the findings.
To quote from the article: A survey of US soldiers in Afghanistan shows declining morale among army units and that troops facing three or more combat tours have higher rates of mental health and marital problems, the US Army said Friday.
The key phrase is bolded..three or more friggin tours people. To continue from the writeup:
Soldiers in Afghanistan who had gone through three or more deployments were “significantly more likely to meet the criteria for a psychological problem” than those on their first and second deployment, the report said.
Among troops facing three or more deployments, 31 percent were suffering from mental health problems compared to 18.1 percent of soldiers on their second deployment and 13.6 percent on their first combat tour, it said.
And marital problems were dramatically higher among soldiers with three or more combat tours, with 30.8 percent experiencing marital crises compared to 14.3 percent for those on their first deployment.
These soldiers know we are doing nothing to better the lives of the Afghanistan people or to end the reign of terror that Al Qaeda has going on in the world..specifically that part of the world. They are frustrated and probably at their wit’s end.
Add to that, the ratio of mental health caregivers to soldiers is a whopping one to 1,123 soldiers.
WTF? Lemme say that again for ya..one mental health provider for every 1,123 soldiers. Holy fuckamoly..that is criminal. But the government says that will change shortly because they plan on shipping a shitload of Shrinks over there by the end of the year…hopefully none of them are like Major Hasan for christ’s sake. We saw how well they screen those guys recently.
And The Big O is taking his sweet time figuring out wtf he is gonna do. I am glad he is doing that..but I really don’t see much as changing..just the numbers being deployed and redeployed..and redeployed again..and again and again.
It’s criminal I tell ya..fucking god damn criminal what we do to our soldiers in the name of the war on friggin terror.
