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I ask myself why I want to join the Marine Corps, and I only have one response; Respect, Honor, and Duty. Then again someone made a comment about the Marine Corps that really took a shot at my feelings and my views. One of my classmates in the past made a comment that ALL Marines are drunks, drug heads, and abusive, cocky American men. Well, I completely disagree. I do not dispute the fact at all that some Marines are cocky, or drunks, but we have no idea what they have been through. An average of 1 in 8 service members that return from combat roles suffer from PTSD. Notice that this is the whole American military; not just the Marine Corps. PTSD according to Medicinenet.com is an emotional illness that is classified as an anxiety disorder and usually develops as a result of a terribly frightening, life-threatening, or otherwise highly unsafe experience, which can easily be war. Men and women come home and cannot turn off the “kill” aggression that they have and the military hardly helps them at all, so their lifestyle is in shock, and has completely changed. They are suffering from something that cannot be fixed. They experienced things that some of us will never experience and could never imagine.
According to a 2005 VA study of 168,528 Iraqi veterans, 20 percent were diagnosed with psychological disorders, including 1,641 with PTSD. The Marines and Army were nearly four times more likely to report PTSD than Navy or Air Force because of their greater exposure to combat situations. A 2003 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine said about 1 in 6 soldiers returning from Iraq suffered from PTSD. Interviews with those at risk showed that only 23 percent to 40 percent sought professional help, most typically because they feared it would hurt their military careers. I believe this is a different way to look at how some service member’s act, but you should NOT assume that all Marines are like that. That is disrespect to the ones that aren’t, and not helping those who do suffer; do not discriminate, help. “The most important thing we can do for service members who have been in combat is to help them understand that the earlier that they get help when they need it, the better off they’ll be,” Dr. Charles W. Hoge Walter Reed Army Institute Researher. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US9J2o16bJE |
