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

nytimes.com

481–490 of 599 posts

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

#481

A lot of special forces have been doing what we used to call "door kicking" in the last few wars. Lots of explosive breaches, firing weapons and throwing grenades indoors. I'm sure this is the main contributing factor. The percussive force of firing and explosives indoors is horrible and I say this as an ex artillery officer, so I'm used to chest-breaking bangs from firing big artillery guns

Any source for this? Artillery was around for 500 years and shell shock was hugely discussed for past 100 years. There is much better corellation with divorce. Soldiers returns home with PTSD, only to have their house, children, savings and pension stollen. Because they were not around to guard it! And they may get thrown into prison for being too poor! Shell shock is very convinient excuse, when victims do not get p…

RTFA (read the flipping article)

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

#482
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Historically, the rationale for excluding women from the draft was that they weren't eligible to serve in combat roles, voluntarily or otherwise Historically countries didn't let women fight in wars because they didn't want their civilisation to die out. If a country loses a double-digit percent of its men it can still repopulate just as quickly, because one man can make multiple women pregnant, while if it loses it…

> Historically countries didn't let women fight in wars because they didn't want their civilisation to die out. If a country loses a double-digit percent of its men it can still repopulate just as quickly, because one man can make multiple women pregnant, while if it loses its women then it takes significantly longer to repopulate, because one woman can't have multiple babies at the same time so the birthrate will ne…

Post-WW2 Soviet Union, or maybe Paraguay post-War of Triple Alliance

In no cases were there laws, government doesn't need to pass laws to make it happen, just just because there weren't laws doesn't mean it didn't happen a lot

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

#483
post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in Ukraine doing your duty? If you are not Ukrainian they do take volunteers. Surrender is an option, none of those things is worse than death. I would not make that trade. If the Ukrainian men want to stop it they can still volunteer, so can anyone else. And it looks like they will lose the war anyway, so they’ll have to surrender anyway except now after a huge amount of death and destruction. Ukraine is hea…

Your kind of thinking leads to societal decay like the kind seen at Uvalde. Each of the 374 cops chose to prioritize their own wellbeing over collective interests, ultimately leading to 19 kids and 2 teachers getting killed despite overwhelming odds against the perpertrator. And there are many things worse than death. Do you know how Russian combat medics are trained? Instructors pick a prisoner, cut off their palm,…

Wow. That second paragraph sounds like _blatant_ war propaganda.

Unless there’s plentiful evidence for the above (it’s possible one-off, I suppose), I think you’ve gone full fruit-loop territory.

I humbly suggest you look in the mirror and ask what’s actually going on in your head, and why. This sort of distorted extreme thinking is what creates monsters.

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

#484
post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a reservist in a country that has such a high risk of Russian invasion that defense leaders have stopped all non-essential spending in favor of hoarding as much artillery and rockets as they can for when the time comes. I do not have a suitcase packed and I do not intend to flee anywhere. And people here are taught since childhood that this not about being an useful little soldier for the government, but an esse…

So because you don’t need the freedom to not volunteer others shouldn’t have it either? The issue pertains to pressganging which of course does not apply to volunteers. I don’t agree with the framing again, but again I don’t think I’ll be changing anyone’s mind here.

As with Uvalde, I believe that the choice to maximize own wellbeing at the expense of others will often lead to worse outcome for all.

Vaccines are a good example of this. Everyone is better off when they take a personal risk to eradicate polio from the entire group. In the process, some people will suffer side-effects ranging from allergic reaction to even death in the worst case, but that is the sacrifice that needs to be made. Unfortunately, modern imbalance towards individualism has produced a generation of parents who cannot tolerate any risk, choose the selfish option and leave their children unvaccinated, leading to re-emergence of old infectious diseases that kill and maim more children than the universal vaccination would.

Individual and collective interests need to be fairly balanced, and Ukraine has done that by preferring older conscripts over younger ones, but you will never find enough volunteers for any truly shitty situation that requires more people than the tiny fraction of natural-born risk-takers who fill the ranks of firefighters and other dangerous professions.

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

#485
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People that hunt and shoot guns their whole lives do not commit suicide at high levels. This is what I am basing my statements on. Basically half the people I know in the US fall in to this category.

I know the US can be gun obsessed at times but I struggle to believe that even a professional hunter who frequents the range in his spare time fires as many rounds in a given day as a Navy SEAL who's entire job description revolves around being trained to deliver rapid and precise attacks under extreme pressure, which is only possible with incessant drills and practice. People that hunt and shoot guns their whole liv…

> Navy SEAL who's entire job description revolves around being trained to deliver rapid and precise attacks under extreme pressure

You'd be surprised how much time SOFs im general spend lying in a bush, peeing on bottles and radioing in updates. Although US SOFs may have been doing it less than others during GWOT. Not everything is DA.

(That doesn't change your general point though, and SOF training is extremely rigorous and demanding and does include a lot of shooting. But not all day every day.)

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

#486
post #427

Qualifier: Former US special operations operator that served in multiple wars. My anecdotal take is there are many ways that shock and trauma can accumulate through training and war that are far beyond the minimal effects of an M4. Firearms: While the primary weapons systems are the M4 and side arm (pistol), there are many weapons systems utilized by special operations such as sniper rifles, crew serve weapons, and n…

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

#487
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s not a crime?

I have no idea; it's certainly not one that's seen any prosecution.

The only people who could do anything about it probably have age-related hearing loss and don't see it as a problem. Same reason nobody does anything about extremely loud motorcyclists.

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

#488
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"

Ukraine is running low on conscripts because they're not drafting 18-20 year olds.

their national birthrates, just like in the rest of Europe, are low, and losing 20-40% of the 18-25 year old cohort means population collapse.

Russia is in a similar place, and is generally only drafting from ethnic minorities, far eastern locales, and prisoners, plus a hearty dose of mercenaries. that said, they have 3x the population and can just pull way more people.

in both countries the average of a trooper is like 38-45.

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

#489
post #427

Qualifier: Former US special operations operator that served in multiple wars. My anecdotal take is there are many ways that shock and trauma can accumulate through training and war that are far beyond the minimal effects of an M4. Firearms: While the primary weapons systems are the M4 and side arm (pistol), there are many weapons systems utilized by special operations such as sniper rifles, crew serve weapons, and n…

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Concussion is a film about football players & suicide

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

#490
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One counterexample may be sufficient to disprove a hypothesis. If you claim a certain quadratic equation has no roots and I give you one root, you can’t say “n=1”.

It is a strong datapoint, but he may be using meaningfully different weapons / ammo compared to seals. Math avoids this kind of uncertainty.

The guns are different, but primers are mostly the same.
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