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I was an infantryman in the Army for ten years, from 1998 to 2008, and deployed three times, twice to Iraq, Encounters with IEDs were common, especially during

I was an infantryman in the Army for ten years, from 1998 to 2008, and deployed three times, twice to Iraq, Encounters with IEDs were common, especially during the surge. So many of my friends have died to suicide or have killed themselves due to drugs and/or alcohol that it is hard to keep track. Now that primadonna seals are dying maybe someone will pay attention. Thankfully the only lasting effects of my deployments seem to be a bad back and distaste for authority.

ein0p 2y ago
Do you think it's because of whatever brain damage they may have encountered, or because they could not find meaning in their civilian lives? I've read it's often the latter in military men, especially the ones that really believed in the mission and experienced highly stressful life or death situations. They come back and they're taken aback by the mundane bullshit that our lives are in comparison to what they've been through. Intuitively that rings true, but having never served, I can't fully relate.
- snakeyjake 2y ago
  >Do you think it's because of whatever brain damage they may have encountered, or because they could not find meaning in their civilian lives? I have no idea. Strangely the most common thread seems to be the ones who off themselves went back home after getting out. Almost everyone I know who got out and stayed away from home is doing ok. Almost everyone I know who got out and went back home is a wreck. Some had TBI exposures, some didn't.
  - nightowl_games 2y ago
    What do you mean by stayed away from home? Like stayed away from the wife and kids? For how long?
    - snakeyjake 2y ago
      Going home means going back to their hometown after getting out.
  - wrp 2y ago
    I've heard similar comments from civilians, that dealing with extreme situations overseas isn't as stressful as dealing with folks when you go back home. I don't know whether home folks are actually the problem or it's just delayed response. I think it was T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) who said that reactions to the trauma of war continue to bubble up long afterwards. Maybe that is suppressed for as long as you stay "in the field."
  - elmomle 2y ago
    This makes a lot of sense. People are fundamentally changed by their experiences in combat zones. I'd imagine that going somewhere new afterwards allows you to be whoever you now are on your own terms, whereas going home means continually experiencing the pain of no longer fitting in to the life and loving relationship that you'd had before, with no relief in sight.
    - morkalork 2y ago
      Could also be the difference between having a plan with long term goals that leads you to a new city vs not knowing what to do next and defaulting to just going back home. Maybe it's not that home is bad, but the fact you ended up there.
      - xattt 2y ago
        > Maybe it's not that home is bad, but the fact you ended up there. Particularly when vocational and transition supports are available from the VA.
    - dansult 2y ago
      Changed maybe but not a whole new person. And its not binary - my experiences will different to yours even if we were in the exact same situations. After two tours I am not so different that I cannot interface with friends or family as I did before. I think the misconception of this statement does more harm then good and shows a rather negative interpretation of combat veterans.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      It's not exactly uncommon for people to join the military to get away from an unsatisfying or low-opportunity home life. Ending up back at the place you wanted to get away from could be pretty depressing.
  - ocschwar 2y ago
    Sounds like what makes military service a good path is that 1. enlisting puts you in a better place than the previous day or 2. the time in the service enables a step up of some kind afterwards.
- munificent 2y ago
  > Do you think it's because of whatever brain damage they may have encountered, or because they could not find meaning in their civilian lives? Why not both? One of the key challenges with taking care of humans is that we rarely have the luxury of having only a single problem at a time.
  - ein0p 2y ago
    Because if we are to address this problem we have to identify the primary cause.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - shkkmo 2y ago
      If a problem has multiple causes, only addressing one of them seem like a mistake.
      - jader201 2y ago
        If there is a more likely single “tipping point”, solving for that one may be easier and therefore more likely to have an impact.
      - vasco 2y ago
        That's the destructive wasteful thinking of "every little bit helps". 80/20 can be applied to almost everything and looking at the second top factor of anything is a waste of time until you properly looked at the first and can't do anymore.
        enugu 2y ago
        In a multi-stage process, even if you fix the cause with 80% responsibility, the outcome may not improve by much, as there is failure now at another stage. Of course, fixing that single cause is still progress.
- AYBABTME 2y ago
  This feeling doesn't last forever though. It fades relatively quickly, all things considered.
lawgimenez 2y ago
What made you think Seals are primadonnas? Does this apply to other special forces too?
- snakeyjake 2y ago
  They don't do anything without $40 billion of air assets circling their position providing cover and get pissy when you tell them they have to shave and can't paint their weapons arbitrary colors. Also they're all on drugs and will kill you if you report them for embezzling unit funds.
  - TheCondor 2y ago
    They take PEDs or street drugs?
    - mrslave 2y ago
      PEDs. See the Kyle Mullen death during the SEAL entry testing[0] and subsequent policy to test for PEDs[1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32656856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32656856 [1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/20/navy-seals-start-performance-enhancing-drug-tests-next-month-legal-challenges-are-likely-follow.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/20/navy-seals-st...
  - no_exit 2y ago
    > they're all on drugs To be fair to the SEALs, this is every US SF unit.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - maybelsyrup 2y ago
    > Also they're all on drugs and will kill you if you report them for embezzling unit funds. This is maybe not too related to the brain damage stuff (or maybe it is?), but I don't think the wider public knows nearly enough about the frankly shocking kinds and amounts of criminality in the various US special forces units. OP is not kidding about these people operating as gangs (but worse, because they're sanctioned killers). A smattering of such behavior: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/07/internal-study-defense-special-operations-forces-485825 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/07/internal-study-defe... https://news.usni.org/2021/01/24/seal-sentenced-to-10-years-in-death-of-green-beret-logan-melgar https://news.usni.org/2021/01/24/seal-sentenced-to-10-years-... https://abc7chicago.com/us-navy-seals-seal-training-drugs-investigation/12184034/ https://abc7chicago.com/us-navy-seals-seal-training-drugs-in... The journalist (and Army vet, iirc) Seth Harp does yeoman's work on this topic, and is a good Twitter follow. He's got several excellent long-form investigative articles, often for Rolling Stone. Here's one on the rampant murders (ongoing!) at Fort Bragg that the Army won't talk about: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/fort-bragg-murders-1153405/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/fort-b... And another one about rampant drug deaths at ... also Fort Bragg: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/inside-the-overdose-crisis-sweeping-fort-bragg-1396298/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/inside... I think it's time to have a big cultural conversation about how much our current era of spec ops worship is worth all the war crimes and other less-than-normative behavior.
palad1n 2y ago
[flagged]
paganel 2y ago
All the best to you, just wanted to add that it’s interesting that I’ve read similar opinions about the Russian SOF coming from Russian grunts, too, so I guess this is a general feeling among the world’s forces. If it matters I personally am in the grunts’ side, they’re the backbone of any army.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

ein0p 2y ago

Do you think it's because of whatever brain damage they may have encountered, or because they could not find meaning in their civilian lives? I've read it's often the latter in military men, especially the ones that really believed in the mission and experienced highly stressful life or death situations. They come back and they're taken aback by the mundane bullshit that our lives are in comparison to what they've been through. Intuitively that rings true, but having never served, I can't fully relate.

snakeyjake 2y ago
>Do you think it's because of whatever brain damage they may have encountered, or because they could not find meaning in their civilian lives? I have no idea. Strangely the most common thread seems to be the ones who off themselves went back home after getting out. Almost everyone I know who got out and stayed away from home is doing ok. Almost everyone I know who got out and went back home is a wreck. Some had TBI exposures, some didn't.
- nightowl_games 2y ago
  What do you mean by stayed away from home? Like stayed away from the wife and kids? For how long?
  - snakeyjake 2y ago
    Going home means going back to their hometown after getting out.
- wrp 2y ago
  I've heard similar comments from civilians, that dealing with extreme situations overseas isn't as stressful as dealing with folks when you go back home. I don't know whether home folks are actually the problem or it's just delayed response. I think it was T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) who said that reactions to the trauma of war continue to bubble up long afterwards. Maybe that is suppressed for as long as you stay "in the field."
- elmomle 2y ago
  This makes a lot of sense. People are fundamentally changed by their experiences in combat zones. I'd imagine that going somewhere new afterwards allows you to be whoever you now are on your own terms, whereas going home means continually experiencing the pain of no longer fitting in to the life and loving relationship that you'd had before, with no relief in sight.
  - morkalork 2y ago
    Could also be the difference between having a plan with long term goals that leads you to a new city vs not knowing what to do next and defaulting to just going back home. Maybe it's not that home is bad, but the fact you ended up there.
    - xattt 2y ago
      > Maybe it's not that home is bad, but the fact you ended up there. Particularly when vocational and transition supports are available from the VA.
  - dansult 2y ago
    Changed maybe but not a whole new person. And its not binary - my experiences will different to yours even if we were in the exact same situations. After two tours I am not so different that I cannot interface with friends or family as I did before. I think the misconception of this statement does more harm then good and shows a rather negative interpretation of combat veterans.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    It's not exactly uncommon for people to join the military to get away from an unsatisfying or low-opportunity home life. Ending up back at the place you wanted to get away from could be pretty depressing.
- ocschwar 2y ago
  Sounds like what makes military service a good path is that 1. enlisting puts you in a better place than the previous day or 2. the time in the service enables a step up of some kind afterwards.
munificent 2y ago
> Do you think it's because of whatever brain damage they may have encountered, or because they could not find meaning in their civilian lives? Why not both? One of the key challenges with taking care of humans is that we rarely have the luxury of having only a single problem at a time.
- ein0p 2y ago
  Because if we are to address this problem we have to identify the primary cause.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - shkkmo 2y ago
    If a problem has multiple causes, only addressing one of them seem like a mistake.
    - jader201 2y ago
      If there is a more likely single “tipping point”, solving for that one may be easier and therefore more likely to have an impact.
    - vasco 2y ago
      That's the destructive wasteful thinking of "every little bit helps". 80/20 can be applied to almost everything and looking at the second top factor of anything is a waste of time until you properly looked at the first and can't do anymore.
      - enugu 2y ago
        In a multi-stage process, even if you fix the cause with 80% responsibility, the outcome may not improve by much, as there is failure now at another stage. Of course, fixing that single cause is still progress.
AYBABTME 2y ago
This feeling doesn't last forever though. It fades relatively quickly, all things considered.

lawgimenez 2y ago

What made you think Seals are primadonnas? Does this apply to other special forces too?

snakeyjake 2y ago
They don't do anything without $40 billion of air assets circling their position providing cover and get pissy when you tell them they have to shave and can't paint their weapons arbitrary colors. Also they're all on drugs and will kill you if you report them for embezzling unit funds.
- TheCondor 2y ago
  They take PEDs or street drugs?
  - mrslave 2y ago
    PEDs. See the Kyle Mullen death during the SEAL entry testing[0] and subsequent policy to test for PEDs[1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32656856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32656856 [1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/20/navy-seals-start-performance-enhancing-drug-tests-next-month-legal-challenges-are-likely-follow.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/20/navy-seals-st...
- no_exit 2y ago
  > they're all on drugs To be fair to the SEALs, this is every US SF unit.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- maybelsyrup 2y ago
  > Also they're all on drugs and will kill you if you report them for embezzling unit funds. This is maybe not too related to the brain damage stuff (or maybe it is?), but I don't think the wider public knows nearly enough about the frankly shocking kinds and amounts of criminality in the various US special forces units. OP is not kidding about these people operating as gangs (but worse, because they're sanctioned killers). A smattering of such behavior: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/07/internal-study-defense-special-operations-forces-485825 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/07/internal-study-defe... https://news.usni.org/2021/01/24/seal-sentenced-to-10-years-in-death-of-green-beret-logan-melgar https://news.usni.org/2021/01/24/seal-sentenced-to-10-years-... https://abc7chicago.com/us-navy-seals-seal-training-drugs-investigation/12184034/ https://abc7chicago.com/us-navy-seals-seal-training-drugs-in... The journalist (and Army vet, iirc) Seth Harp does yeoman's work on this topic, and is a good Twitter follow. He's got several excellent long-form investigative articles, often for Rolling Stone. Here's one on the rampant murders (ongoing!) at Fort Bragg that the Army won't talk about: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/fort-bragg-murders-1153405/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/fort-b... And another one about rampant drug deaths at ... also Fort Bragg: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/inside-the-overdose-crisis-sweeping-fort-bragg-1396298/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/inside... I think it's time to have a big cultural conversation about how much our current era of spec ops worship is worth all the war crimes and other less-than-normative behavior.

palad1n 2y ago

[flagged]

paganel 2y ago

All the best to you, just wanted to add that it’s interesting that I’ve read similar opinions about the Russian SOF coming from Russian grunts, too, so I guess this is a general feeling among the world’s forces. If it matters I personally am in the grunts’ side, they’re the backbone of any army.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]