<p>AmericanSoldier, you have it absolutely right. As an officer, Soldier, cadet, whatever, it’s not that you cant talk to the media, but you need to speak with PAO and your chain of command prior to. When I was in Iraq, there were countless times when members of the media would come to speak to Soldiers, and they would do a lenghty interview that hit a lot of good points, only to play the 2 seconds in which the Soldier sounded like we should pull out of Iraq, which was not what they were saying when taken in context of the entire interview, but it proved the agenda whatever reporter wanted. I read that Washington Post article and was appalled by what the annoymous cadets said; I’m sorry, but as a plebe, you have no idea what’s going on at the higher levels of the academy.</p>
<p>Changing gears. Suicide is a SERIOUS problem in the Army right now. More Soldiers took their own lives in January than were killed by hostile action in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. USMA happens to be falling into the much larger problem. We had a Soldier kill himself in my Battalion just 2 weeks ago; our Brigade had at least 4 suicides while we were in Iraq, and we had several prior to heading over. While we may find it easy to sit back and say “why would a cadet want to take their life?” we need to also look at the bigger issue throughout the entire Army and what is causing Soldiers to kill themselves at the highest rate since Vietnam, despite the fact that actual combat trauma in Iraq is at an all time low, and, despite it’s recent resurgence in Afghanistan, still remains much lower than it has been in previous wars. The Army as a whole is having a huge problem right now, one caused in major part, in my opinion, by the strain of multiple deployments on relationships back home. We need to fix this. A wise man once told me that it doesnt matter how you get killed; in a car accident, taking your own life, getting torn apart by an IED, the endstate is the same–it destroys the team that you were a part of because people count on you to do your job and with you gone, the strain goes on someone else.
I know I’ve been very longwinded on this, but it’s an issue I’ve been racking my brain on for sometime now and I’m glad it’s been brought up here. Something that you all who are at the academy or are trying to go need to take away from this is the importance of ensuring your Soldiers, friends, classmates, whoever, know that they have someone they can go and talk to. My Platoon went through a 2 week period of a lot of pretty traumatic stuff in Iraq, and we pulled everyone together and just talked about what we were going through, and I really think it helped Soldiers open up and know it was ok to talk about how they were feeling. Regardless if its PTSD or relationship or stress issues, you need to have someone to talk to.</p>