Soldier Suicide as Political Statement Essay -- Politics Army War Essa

Soldier Suicide as Political Statement At least 29 U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq and Kuwait committed suicide between March 2003 and March 2004. Even the Pentagon considers this an alarmingly high suicide rate. It lead the military to commission a morale poll to be completed by Stars & Stripes (August 2003) and to send in a special mental health advisory team to prise the situation. In April 2004, military officials reported the teams conclusion while the suicide rate for soldiers overseas is almost double that of the civilian population, is not considered a crisis. (1) Perhaps these suicides fall apart us more about how the implementation of democracy and freedom in Iraq is going than we learn from other (government sanctioned) reports. What might we gain if we considered suicide, however tentatively, as a kind of an achievement, even... as a kind of gift... not the one we might have wished for, but the one they give us when they do not have anything to give, writ es Peggy Phelan, A more expansive consideration of suicide might help make an intervention into the usual story of shame, failure, and anguish that all too frequently dominates the relationship of the funding with those who kill themselves. (2) Let us listen to the self-inflicted deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq as statements of resistance that highlight problems with the United States all volunteer military system. Many soldiers (particularly members of the Reserves and field Guard) are driven to enlist for financial/economic reasons. Faced with limited options, they may have purposefully kept at bay any unplayful consideration of the possibilities of combat so that they would be able to sign on. These soldier... ...nic dimensions of those inequities. When one considers that for many members of our volunteer army, their decision to enlist was made because it was one of their only options for stability, employment, college funding, citizenship... documentation our troops takes on different meaning. Soldiers in Iraq who took their own lives are calling out to the wider community to investigate why so many find themselves in a situation where death is their most empowered choice. Works Cited1 Statistics compiled from multiple news sources listed in the Media Analysis section that follows.2 p.6-7, 24, Peggy Phelan, Francesca Woodmans Photography terminal and the Image One More Time, Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society , vol. 27, no. 4, The University of Chicago, 2002. 3 Stanley Aronowitz, Curb Your Enthusiasm, First of the Month , Winter 2004.