MALTREATMENT

Since the onset of what the Army is calling Warrior Transition Units (WTU), this is allowing for some soldiers to get ready and transition from the military. The program was designed with this idea. What is happening in a lot of units is that soldiers are still being treated as second class citizens.
Our soldiers went to war and the come back to be treated like the are slave labor. Having these soldiers out picking up trash or mopping and cleaning does not give them a sense of purpose.
The suicide rate in the Army is up. Soldiers are killing themselves for many reasons, but when you get right down to it, does the soldier have a reason, or a purpose in life. When basic motivations are taken away from a soldier or person in general, it leaves the soldier feeling as though there are few options left to them.
When i was in Iraq, I became addicted to opiates. The chain of command treated me as though I was a criminal. They put me in a room where I went through detox on my own without medical supervision. Suicide crossed my mind on numerous occasions. As far as I knew my career and family were done. Luckily I survived my detox, and did not take the alternate route out.
What commanders and others need to remember is that drug and alcohol abuse is symptom of something else going on. Do you subordinates a favor and talk to them, and in turn listen. If more time is taken to really understand what the soldier today is going through, I believe there will be fewer cases of suicide and other self-destructive behavior.