U.S. General Says Soldiers Who Commit Suicide Are 'Selfish' [View all]

[n2doc]

After 10 years at war, American soldiers are showing severe signs of wear. Not only have 126,000 troops returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injuries since the start of the wars, another 70,000 of them have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. According to Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli, the majority of soldiers disqualified from service due to injury have either TBI or PTSD.

As you might imagine, all that mental turmoil has resulted in erratic behavior in the military's ranks. Hundreds of American veterans and enlisted people still commit suicide every year, and for a couple years more soldiers were killing themselves than were dying on the battlefield. Crime is regular enough amongst the veteran community that special "veterans courts" have begun popping up around the United States.

War demands that people kill men, women, and children, and watch their friends get killed in return—probably the most mentally taxing experience the world has ever known. Of course our soldiers come back in agony, and of course that agony sometimes leads to suicide. But to at least one American general, all this complaining about soldiers killing themselves is "selfish."

"I have now come to the conclusion that suicide is an absolutely selfish act," wrote Major General Dana Pittard, who commands Fort Bliss, one of the nation's largest military bases, in an official blog post. "I am personally fed up with soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess." Pittard added that any soldier thinking of committing suicide should "be an adult, act like an adult, and deal with your real-life problems like the rest of us."

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