Ten-fold!

This is coolbert:

From the on-line edition of the Stars & Stripes newspaper some interesting items as extracted with commentary:

1. American soldiers still committing suicide. In fact, more troops killing themselves in 2012 than the enemy in Afghan were able to kill!! A most unpleasant statistic NOT ameliorated by psychiatric care, more than anything else those repeated deployments a major factor, at least that is what my intuition tells me.

"More soldier suicides than combat deaths in 2012"

"The Department of the Army also showed strains, with soldier suicides outnumbering combat-related deaths for the year."

"Through November this year, potentially 303 active-duty, Reserve and National Guard soldiers took their own lives. In Afghanistan 212 soldiers were killed as of Dec. 7."

"The trajectory for soldier suicides keeps getting worse."

2. Autopsies of American military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghan seeming to suggest that at least for the soldier, heart disease much lessened from what it was sixty years ago. A TENFOLD drop even so indicates the data? Extraordinary. Even since the era of the Korean War [1950] routine autopsies performed on American personnel to develop a baseline of physical and health that is useful for long-term comparison purposes. Recall that in modern American society only about one-quarter [1/4] of U.S. young men are mentally and physically able to pass the military qualifications for enlistment. These autopsies qualify as medical treatment? Treatment so broadly defined as to be legal regardless of condition, alive or otherwise.

"Autopsies of war dead suggest today’s troops live healthier lives"

"WASHINGTON — They may be fatter, but when it comes to cardio health, today’s troops appear far fitter than their predecessors from earlier wars."

At least, that’s what the autopsies of thousands of war dead stretching back more than 60 years suggest.

 "researchers who compared autopsy data of thousands of American servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to data from the Vietnam and Korean wars reported that a key measure of heart disease may have dropped nearly ten-fold."{

"For troops who died in the recent wars, they found an overall rate of atherosclerosis — hardening and thickening of major arteries — of 8.5 percent. Autopsy results of Americans who died fighting in Korea suggest 77 percent of troops in the early 1950s conflict had atherosclerosis. In Vietnam, the rate was 45 percent."

That hardening of the arteries as found during that time of the Korean War young men most of whom were no more than twenty years of age causing astonishment among the medical community, a big wake up call among the doctors specializing in the heart disease. Vast strides in prevention and treatment having been made in the interim.

3. Once more, the American military serviceman behaving badly. And once more also, it is a member of the Marine Corps. And of course this occurrence as you might expect on the island of Okinawa. Tensions already high, sky-high even, this particular "troop" the peeping tom, the cat burglar, the intruder, etc. Innocent until proven guilty.

"Marine on Okinawa arrested for trespassing"

"NAHA, Okinawa — A U.S. Marine was arrested Friday for alleged trespassing after he was spotted on an Okinawa apartment balcony."

"A woman who lived in the apartment in downtown Naha’s Kumoji district said she heard a noise and saw the 24-year-old corporal, assigned to Camp Hansen, peering through a window at about 4:24 a.m."

"The Marine fled, but police spotted him on the roof of the apartment next door about three hours later, the spokesman said, adding that the man smelled of alcohol at the time of the arrest."

Good mixed with the bad. Always has been, always will be.

coolbert.