"A Wise Man Once Said,"

At the age of fourteen, I was told something.

My cousin requested that I attend a therapy session with him as I was one of the most important people in this life and he wanted me to have a clearer understanding of what he was going through.

At the time, I agreed because he was my favorite person in the whole world and I wanted to spend time with him before he left.

We were leaving the building when I overheard a gentleman say, "Why do these men and women come back from war and fall apart? If you ask you, the reason we have so many issues as a country is because we have wusses fighting for us."

Naturally, I am blunt and hot-headed. Especially when I feel personally attacked and/or threatened.

But thankfully, my cousin was there to keep my mouth shut.

He led us back to the car and told the gentleman to have a nice day.

The car was silent for several minutes.

Until I asked, "Why do you continue to fight for people that don't care about you?"

And my cousin said this,

"For every thousand that bring me down, there is one that raises me up. That one person is worth everything. They have the right to be protected. Let me explain it to you this way so pay close attention. Barrack Obama is the President of the United States. He is everything we want in a leader. He is charming, charismatic, generous, loving, intelligent, humorous, etc. But what if we found out he suffered from PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)? What if we found out that one too many nights, he woke up and had no idea where he was. He can taste the gun powder in his mouth, feel the blood on his skin, hearing the bombs dropping, the gun shots ringing clear through his ear and see his friends fall before him. What if we found out that one too many times he chased a bottle of liquor to pretend for just a moment that he wasn't broken. Would you still see him the same way? And it's okay to say "no". Because let's be honest, we don't want someone that's mentally unstable leading our country. But that's what it is like for us. For the first time in our lives (for most of us), we are needed and useful. This is something we are good at. And that has to count for something."

Later that year, my cousin committed suicide.

In his note, he said that he didn't want to live in a world where he was broken.

And I wish he would have come to me, told me how he felt, because I would have told him what I have been telling myself everyday for years.

"Who cares what people think? So what if they think you're broken? But even if you are.. it takes more effort picking up the pieces and putting them back together, hurting yourself over and over again, than it does to simply make something new. Something better. Something more you."

Let me say, my cousin was the most human of human beings I have ever met.

And trust me, I am not being biased because I despise a lot of my family members.

People neglect to remember that soldiers are not machines.

They are not dancing monkeys nor are they mindless robots.

They are human beings with hearts, minds and souls.

Once we start understanding that, maybe the suicide rate of these valiant and noble men and women will go down.

US Veterans With PTSD

Humans beings,
no matter what walk of life
they are from,
 are not going to be
open up and take off
their masks/armor
unless they feel as though
they are going to be accepted.

Percentages, percentages, percentages..

Almost 25% of nearly 5,500 active-duty, non-deployed Army soldiers SURVEYED tested positive for a mental disorder of some kind, and 11% within that subgroup also tested positive for more than one illness.

Now, people may look at these percentages provided and think, "That's not really a big number." But it is a big number.

MASSIVE in fact!

What is disturbing is the lack of mental health evaluation before men and women enlist in the military. Of course, there are physical evaluations to make sure they will be up to the task and not collapse but what about their mental health?

Nearly half of the soldiers who were diagnosed with a mental disorder had it when they enlisted!

Honestly, the ignorance within the military is appalling. They are basically accepting whomever is physically able to withstand the demands throughout the time they serve.

How unusual is it that they are surprised when these men and women return from war scarred for life and unable to adapt to life outside of battle.

The rate of major depression is five times as high among soldiers as civilians; intermittent explosive disorder, which results in episodes of extreme anger, is six times as high; and post-traumatic stress disorder was nearly 15 times higher than among civilians, the study found.

Most of the soldiers have attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and intermittent explosive disorder before enrolling in the military.

When it came to suicidal thoughts, one study found about 14% of soldiers had thought about taking their lives, while 5.3% had planned a suicide and 2.4% had actually made one or more attempts.

There may be various percentages, things that most people do not want to sit and attempt to understand, but there is one thing I can say.

Anything over 0% is far too much.

These men and women fight to protect us.

We have to fight to protect them as well.

And that starts with pushing to have these soldiers mentally evaluated before even physical evaluations.

It's far more important.

Most of the information from this blog post (and more) can be found here.