ForcesWatch comment

2012 was the the first year 'in at least a generation' in which a greater number of currently-serving US Army soldiers killed themselves (177) than were killed in active duty (176). The Guardian's analysis shows that this is partly because US deaths in military action went down during 2012 but also partly because the suicide rate has risen.

If suicides in the other services (Navy 60, Marines 48, Air Force 59) are added, the totals become 349 and 295 respectively.

Army vice chief of staff General Lloyd J. Austin III said in August 2012 that, “Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army”.

Yet the number of US military veterans who killed themselves 2012 is 6,500 - 'roughly equivalent to one every 80 minutes'. The reasons are complex with multiple deployments becoming evident as a factor. The Guardian quotes that, "William Nash, a retired Navy psychiatrist.... and colleagues in military psychiatry have developed the concept of 'moral injury' to help understand the current wave of self-harm. He defines that as 'damage to your deeply held beliefs about right and wrong. It might be caused by something that you do or fail to do, or by something that is done to you – but either way it breaks that sense of moral certainty.'

"Contrary to widely held assumptions, it is not the fear and the terror that service members endure in the battlefield that inflicts most psychological damage, Nash has concluded, but feelings of shame and guilt related to the moral injuries they suffer. Top of the list of such injuries, by a long shot, is when one of their own people is killed."

This article was originally published on Bright Green

Fostering a ‘military ethos’ in schools: what’s going on.

Earlier this month the Department for Education published a statement on their website outlining their ambition to promote a military ethos in schools across the country. They state that: “We associate the military with many positive values: loyalty, resilience, courage and teamwork, to name but a few. We recognise that these core values can have a positive impact on pupils”. Through developing projects such as Troops to Teachers and expanding schemes such as the cadets and other alternative military provision in schools (such as Challenger Troop), the government is now actively encouraging schools, especially newer Academies and Free Schools, which tend to exist in more disadvantaged areas, to foster a military ethos.

This official announcement is a major step in a growing trend towards the militarisation of England’s schools; coming after a series of announcements dating back to 2010 and including projects such as Troops to Teachers, military academies, a cadet option within the proposed National Citizen Service and most recently an £11million scheme to create 100 new cadet units in state schools by 2015. It marks the adoption of a ‘military ethos’ as a key part of this government’s education policy; yet this announcement, tucked away and hard to find on the website, has attracted almost no attention. Nobody is speaking out about this worrying trend despite its implications in transforming our schools without any public consultation about the nature of this transformation.

The lack of evidence behind the government’s ‘military skills and ethos’ work, which encompasses all of the listed schemes and announcements, is worrying. The entire multi-million pound endeavour seems to be based on little more than anecdotal evidence gathered from pro-military sources and a couple of more in depth pieces of work that advocate the militarisation of education – a report by Respublica calling for military academies and a 2010 impact assessment on the benefits of cadet units prepared for the Council for Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations. To base major government policy on two non-peer reviewed articles, both written by people wholly in favour of military engagement with education, demonstrates a clear lack of serious consideration when forming this policy which is ill-advised when one considers the potential negative impacts it may have.