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Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

nytimes.com

161–170 of 599 posts

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like discrimination. Only women can produce offspring? Too bad, so sad. Everyone serves if it is required.

It doesn't sound like discrimination, it is discrimination, tautologically. The onus is on you to show that it is bad in this case. We discriminate routinely, children are exempt from working for example.

I believe in the specific case of gender equality, the burden of proof is on the side which claims that discrimination is justified.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#162
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be ok with mandatory draft registration for women if conscription began with only women aged 36 and above? National fertility would be unaffected, since women of that age rarely have children anyways. Then the draft would be gender-balanced and the war hawks would get more bodies for their machine. Everybody wins.

Not really, a society that sends women to war is more or less a cowardly society dressing it up as equality. What sort of male sends the female to check on the noises that sound like an intruder in the wee hours of the night? Do they set turns and when it's her turn she's gotta check out the noises? Any gal married or shacked up with a guy like that should kick him out before night is over. Can you imagine Paul askin…

I mean, when things go bump on our farm my wife won’t hesitate to grab the rifle and haze a black bear or coyote. I’ll lay down my life for my wife and kids but I assure you she can be as dangerous as the next guy; in general much more.

It usually comes down to proximity and appetite.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 kil…

It isn’t just in SPECOPS. A lot of the current mess going on in society with politics is about ‘as long as they do what we need them to do, crimes don’t matter’ too.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#164
post #144
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people do you think are in the military? It’s way below one percent in the USA. In the last war we fought, we lost barely any soldiers compared to the number deployed. It’s bad that we lost any, but your argument is logically null. Women aren’t just baby machines, in any case. Nothing is being “reversed” it’s just more equal if everyone is registered for selective service.

Take a look at Ukraine. They're running low on conscripts despite "modern warfare"

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Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#165
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people do you think are in the military? It’s way below one percent in the USA. In the last war we fought, we lost barely any soldiers compared to the number deployed. It’s bad that we lost any, but your argument is logically null. Women aren’t just baby machines, in any case. Nothing is being “reversed” it’s just more equal if everyone is registered for selective service.

In WW1, so many French young men died in the battles that the average height of the French soldier declined by over an inch in WW2. It became popular for French and German women to marry old men and foreigners after both wars. By preserving the women, society can bounce back from a catastrophic loss of young men.

Men dying in a war, Women most affected. Just underscores how disposable men are. Not like they had hopes or dreams or anything.

Maybe it would be fair if men had privileges to go along with such obligations but equality is equality. It’s not like the world is short on people.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#166
post #46

Artillery crew members who fired thousands of rounds in combat came home plagued by hallucinations and psychosis Could this problem also be affecting civilian gun enthusiasts? Or is the order of magnitude of the exposure just wildly lower compared to the military, even in the most enthusiastic?

If you ever get the chance, go shoot some small caliber weapons. I think everyone should at some point to have a baseline in their head for what guns are. Plus, I think it’d be good for people to know you can become really hard to hit by all but the best shooters by… walking away slowly in a zigzag. Near impossible if you run. And then if you have a chance to be around some small artillery, do that too. It’s hard to…

I've taken pistol and rifle classes. And as a Boy Scout I was in a troop that strayed close to a proving ground.

Yeah, there's a very big difference. I mean a BIG DIFFERENCE

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#167
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Because if we are to address this problem we have to identify the primary cause.

What if there is no ‘primary cause’ that can be fixed, while still solving the underlying need the country seems to have - which is ‘have a large standing group of highly trained, extremely focused, non-conformist, insanely competitive, and professional killers ready at a moments notice’?

It’s not like the mere fact of creating/concentrating the population of the folks willing to be this doesn’t also create a whole swath of secondary effects.

Since after all, if steroids and similar PEDs do actually improve performance - which we wouldn’t be getting worked up about them this way if they didn’t! - then isn’t using them nearly a duty of the folks we are talking about? After all, mission first, and they’re (somewhat) expendable due to the nature of the work.

We make them do all sorts of other things which regularly puts their lives and health in danger, after all, and all the ‘high speed low drag’ folks I’ve personally known have had some kind of long term health impacts. Even if it’s just a lot of joint pain, or screwed up knees/backs.

And barring undesirable secondary effects, isn’t it saving lives and accomplishing missions that otherwise would not be? That is what they signed up for, literally. That and having the absolute craziest stories at the bar later.

note: professional bicyclists and weight lifters will also always have a doping issue that needs mitigating. Well, mitigating if we care about their health vs absolute performance anyway.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In WW1, they called it "shell shock" for soldiers incapacitated without obvious injury. In WW2 it was called "battle fatigue", and now TBI. It seems the WW1 doctors got it right the first time.

What? Shell shock is PTSD. The doctors were concerned about concussive trauma but investigated and ruled it out as the cause. The concern itself was right to have, but I don't think the concern has ever gone away. So I don't characterize that as very "right the first time".

They were right as to the cause.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

    > they're all on drugs
Steriods? I have heard similar.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> they're all on drugs To be fair to the SEALs, this is every US SF unit.

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