Awwww, she’s left us:(

Was it something I said?

As far as thick skin goes, honey, you don’t fucking know me. Go back to your little gorean fantasy world where you can be uberl33tzOMG with your bare tittied pixel girlfriends, who are actually your boyfriends, playing dress up ’cause, you know, that’s like… so cool. Oh, I’m sorry if that offended you – grow a thicker skin.

Oh, and by the way? “Morlin” is dead, and he can’t read the Herald six feet under. Believe in the tooth fairy too?

My apologies to Morlin, for making him sit through all this.

As far as that brigade goes, it’s because if those who knew what was going on had come forward, they would have been killed. No matter what the Army does, gang members will always find a way to join… and when they do, things get bad sometimes. Thankfully, we have measures in place that allow people to be able to come forward.

And again, speaking from my experience, my unit’s not the only one getting it right – every unit I’ve been in, plus every unit I’ve been near or had friends/acquaintances in are getting it right. Every time I’ve gone to a special school, suicide prevention, equal opportunity, etc. is always covered… and these schools I’ve gone to have nothing to do with that sort of thing. One school I was in even had post-deployment facilities set up and made those soldiers who had returned from the desert within a year report there, even if they had already been to their post-deployment stuff back at their previous unit. I could go on and on about the support that is offered, but – it’s obvious, you’ve got your own perception of this, and you’re not going to let your perception go.

The only reason why I replied in the first place is to show that if this kid killed himself, it was his fault and his fault alone. Not the Army’s fault for not intervening, not his fellow soldiers’ fault, not his family’s fault. He did it, regardless of all the help that was out there for him. Again, I’m tired of people talking shit about the Army, and I was setting the record straight – maybe not for you, but for everyone else who may read this regardless if they respond or not. This is why I won’t be e-mailing you – your perception is skewed, and I accept that. I was merely sharing my knowledge in response to your opinion.

*(goes for anyone here – I won’t even block name-callers, promise)

So arrest me;)

(Lola):”not to stereotype…those guys could have a foot full of fungus and gangrene and STILL won’t go to see a medic ’till that shit is about to fall off…all think that medics and psychs are out to get them”

Good thing you’re not stereotyping:) It’s not perceived motive that’s the problem. Usually, its availability or result. For example, many of us came down with pretty bad congestion in Malaysia recently. The MO wasn’t gonna be much help.
He had it himself.
So it was lots of lozenges and coughing up the backwash.
The bloke with nightmares could’ve gone to Psych. But the shrink’s never been shot at – try as he might to “get it”, its common dogfuck that he won’t. But he knew I would.

(Lola):”I know you mean well, and you’re talking from your experience…”

Do you? Because you appear to have interpreted my every word as a personal attack, and met with a spray that can almost be construed as one?
Back to what I said about mates backing each other up. The US military – for all its strengths and successes* – is consistently NOT getting that one thing right. The brigade you mentioned, in which the entire brass had to get the heave-ho, is a case in point. If they HAD got that one thing right, the few bad apples would’ve been frozen out long before the contagion could spread, and certainly before anyone had to contemplate such drastic intervention. If the enablers of Abu Ghraib had got that one thing right, nobody would’ve had to put themselves in such a position, the pressure to do so (even if it came from the top) would not have worked. If Morlins unit had got that one thing right, someone would’ve stepped in to help him out of that hole, and he might still be with us.

I had to harp on about that one issue, because in any military – or any part of any military (in your own unit, they seem to be grasping this) – it is the one success, or the one problem, that will spawn all others. It’s a ludicrous idea that this one thing should have that kind of power, or that it could remain so impervious to any solution other than itself, but it does.
Hence my mention of the Foreign Legion – a distilled version of that very problem.

If relating that one fundamental problem constitutes “talking shit about MY Army”, that’s a hair short of shooting the messenger. I know you get bad press – I keep a Murdoch paper in the loo (guess why). Just do what I do, and what I told Rip to do – stop reading tabloids.
Read the internal publications of other armies instead. If you want realistic press, that’s where you’ll find it.

*(Especially its logistic support – which I might add, we all DREAM about… or did until it started getting farmed out left and right.)

I know you mean well, and you’re talking from your experience, but please stop talking shit about MY Army. It’s bad enough that we’ve got shitty press across the world. The Army is one of the finer institutions in the world and it’s done nothing but treat me well. I can also say that it’s done nothing but treat other soldiers well from Germany to California. Yes, I TOO have worked with thousands of soldiers.

In closing, not to stereotype, but from my experience – sounds like you were working with combat arms guys (infantry, tankers, field artillery, etc). Those guys could have a foot full of fungus and gangrene and STILL won’t go to see a medic ’till that shit is about to fall off. They all think that medics and psychs are out to get them, when that’s completely not the case. I’d also like to know how YOU know that psychiatrists are labelling soldiers as cowards after mental health visits when psychiatry records are 100% CONFIDENTIAL, not even the chain of command can see them. In fact, I’ve gone from station to station, and my mental health record doesn’t even follow me. If you’re saying you’ve seen someone’s record, you’re violating not only HIPAA but quite a few of our regulations.

I for one have trained or worked with more American soldiers than even the average American soldier, and I’ve heard (or more commonly seen) it all – med or psych reports citing “cowardice”, applications for treatment or counselling going into the “round file” (the bin, for those of you not in the trade), you name it. A few dozen GIs I’ve known have had this happen to them – I saw two of them being threatened with insubordination charges if they tried to get the med chit (as we call it).
We’ve never had anything remotely like this problem in our army, or most of the armies we’ve worked with or in (I’m Australian), so we consistently find ourselves more than a little stunned (we do however, have a couple of blokes that did time in the French Foreign Legion, and occasions like these took them down memory lane time and again).

Admittedly, all of these stories are at least three years old – and just about anything can happen in three years. But there’d have to be a seismic shift in its culture for the reforms to make significant inroads, and I haven’t seen it. I’ll bet my balls that you’re right, that nobody noticed. But if he was a loner, what was he doing in the army?
In my unit, a third of the blokes know my girlfriends birthday, even the CSM does – we’re that close. And we’re fairly typical. To ever use the phrase “nobody noticed” would just not be doable.

That was my whole point about your mates being the only real make-or-break help you’ll ever get as a soldier. You can have all the shiny new reforms you like – indeed, every army does, incessantly. They always turn out to be brainfarts, smoke-and-mirrors or jobs for the boys – if they even happen. These won’t buck the trend.

Which is why they won’t matter (and don’t have to). The bloke who had nightmares, KNEW (and still knows) that he could talk to me. Another of my diggers is being charged as I write this (no, its not related) – and he KNOWS that I’ll put my hand up to be his defending officer. It always comes back to backing your mates up.

If an army gets this one simple thing right, it can handle anything, and beat any odds.
If it doesn’t, it’s stuffed, and won’t be able to do a thing about it.