Maurepas wrote:Well, you're right to go back to Vietnam with it. The real trick here is, the military changed during the Vietnam War. They surveyed soldiers during World War II and discovered that something like only 25% or so of soldiers were actually firing their weapons at the enemy. Further, they tested the rate of fire and accuracy with weapons used during the US Civil War and discovered that that same figure played out almost perfectly, that casualties were only 25% or so of what they could've been.
So what they did during the Vietnam War was changed the training, before then you would be trained in the typical Bravery and Honor and whatnot system. During and after the Vietnam War you're trained to think of your enemy as just that, "the enemy" not a person, but a paper target, etc.
That changes a person, they got the results they wanted, IIRC, soldiers were alot more deadly, but they were also alot more prone to post-traumatic stress and the like. As a result, more suicides and other problems that come along with that.
I just wanted to point out a few points in this. First off, it was 20%, not 25% (just a nitpick, I know), and it wasn't 20% of soldiers, but 20% of riflemen-a very important distinction, since the lack of firing was most certainly not found in machinegun crews, pilots, indirect fire weapons operators and the like. Also, it wasn't during Vietnam that they actively attempted to change it-they started immediately after the S.L.A. Marshall report came out, and the number had gone to around 50% by Korea. By Vietnam, it was over 90%. And the factors invovled are rather more significant than just thinking about the enemy as "the enemy;" there are a number of training techniques, such as shooting at man-shaped targets rather than bulls-eyes, extensive drilling in reflexive fire, etc. If you're still interested, I encourage you to read On Killing, by Dave Grossman-it's a fascinating study on all this stuff.
As for the OP...
I've been in for almost three years now, and I've lost count of the number of suicide prevention briefings I've been to. It's a serious problem, but hardly new-even when I joined, we were still losing more troops to suicide than to combat in the average month. So while yes, it is very bad, the military is doing its best to confront the problem and deal with it succesfully.