Epidemiology of Violence in the United States Military - Research Paper Example

Violence The war on terror is continuing with Afghanistan and Iraqi crises still unresolved. As a result, the United s spends a lot of money in these wars including sending men and women to fight these wars. The end result is that these soldiers return home with mental problems, which puts them at danger. This article will attempt consider this matter and what the government is doing to reduce the adverse effects. Introduction To begin with, there is a need to understand the terms that will be used within this article. According to the WHO, violence is defined as per the intentional use of physical force either threatened or real on oneself or others. The result of this force is death, injury or psychological harm (Krug & WHO, 2002). This definition indicates the mental shape of the perpetrator of violence against the victim be it their own self or another person. Epidemiology of Violence in the United States Military The army personnel are exposed to traumatizing experiences during war time. This makes them develop violent tendencies. In 2009, the United States Army documented that the suicide rates in the army had risen fourth year in a row as of 2008 (Finkel, 2011). This was especially high in the marines and the army. The statistics paint a grim picture of the situation that the soldiers find themselves in. They are exposed to death, both of their friends, as well as of the enemy. This is bound to leave a mark on them. One that is difficult to eliminate. This thus causes them to commit suicide as a possible way of exorcising the emotions haunting them. For example, in 1990, the prevalence of spousal violence was at a rate of 19 for every 1000 military families. This further rose to 26 in every 1000 couples, in 1996, but fell to 13 in every 1000 couples in 2004 (Karmen, 2013). According to Karmen, the things may seem to be improving in the army, but these statistics point to a worrying trend as the civilian population has a considerably lower rate of 3 in every 1000 married couples. These figures according to Karmen may be even higher as these are only reflecting the legal spouses who live within the army bases. As for those living off-base, the figures are not collected well thus there is no comprehensive record taking. In 2011, the CDC reported that women sustained 2 million injuries from intimate partners. This means that as of that year, violence was affecting women in very high rates. According to the CDC, the total social costs from violence amounted to between 5 and 10 billion dollars. The victims of violence who were recovering lost about 8 million paid working days, which translated to about 32,000 jobs. This means that the violence is costing the country a lot of money in treatment, litigation and even manpower as some of the victims do not always fully recover while others die or become disabled. Causes of Violence within the Military Families War and deployment into it have a number of negative effects on the soldiers. The poor diets, the sight of death, poor sleep among others will lead to the soldiers becoming hostile to those around them. As stated above, the images of death will become embedded into the minds of the soldiers and, as a result, some of them may not sleep properly, and one end result is that they may become violent (Karmen, 2013). Due to the effects of the war, as indicated earlier, the war has an adverse effect on the service men. This leads them to look for avenues of escaping from their problems, and one of these is alcohol. As a result of this, the soldiers are likely to become violent, and the victims of this are their intimate partners or even close family members. The effect of this is that the people close to these soldiers will eventually isolate them and this has the potential of worsening the situation (Karmen, 2013). Another cause of violence among the soldiers has to do with the medication that the soldiers take. The soldiers coming from active duty have at times a lot of traumatizing mental problems. They could also potentially be injured and even maimed. This means that they are generally in a lot of pain (Blaisure et al., 2012). The medication is likely to turn them into addicts especially when it is abused. This has the danger of either making the individual very temperamental. This means that the person is easily excited by minor details. In this regard, the person is quite capable of doing something outrageous like going berserk and shooting people in a park or joining gangs to terrorize people. Solutions to the Problem of Violence As of 2009, the CDC was working on a national suicide nomenclature to ensure consistent reporting on suicide and related behavior. This would in turn assist in improving communication, research and prevention of further suicides (Jaycox et al., 2011). In addition, the Department of Defense and a specially formed a working group agreed in 2009 to harmonize the nomenclature between the DOD and CDC. The DOD also adopted the Department of Defense Suicide Event Report (DoDSER) (Jaycox et al., 2011). This report was meant to track all suicides within the army as well as attempted suicides. The paragraph above indicates the steps that the army is taking to solve the problems that most of the soldiers carry within themselves. The understanding of why the soldiers are violent or why they go to the extent of killing themselves is very crucial to the DOD. This is because this information will allow the DOD to detect early signs of depression and take decisive action to stop it. It is important to note that the soldiers need to be looked after in the proper way since what is going on in their minds could be a potentially destructive affair. At the same time, the soldiers who go into combat have a trained psychiatrist with them (Blaisure et al., 2012). This facilitates reduction of the adverse effects of the theater of war. As a result, a lot of the soldiers will get to properly deal with the issues affecting them as they happen. This means that a lot of the potential problems are tackled while the soldiers are still fresh from their occurrence. Conclusion War is inevitable. Plato says that ‘only dead men have seen the end of war.’ This statement is an indicator that many issues will continue to be resolved through war. The conflicts in the Middle East do not seem to abate soon, and this means that war will indeed go on occurring. The fact that war is inevitable does not mean that soldiers should be allowed to suffer unnecessarily. Though a number of things are being done, the Department of Defense needs to do more for these soldiers. References Blaisure, K. R., et al. (2012). Military Families in the 21st Century. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. Finkel, M. L. (2011). Public Health in the 21st Century. California: ABC-CLIO, LLC. Jaycox, L. H., et al. (2011). The War Within: Preventing Suicide in the U.S. Military. California: RAND Corporation. Karmen, A. (2013). Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology. California: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Krug, E. G., & WHO. (2002). World Report on Violence and Health. 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