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.