The Forgotten Battalion

Vets - What I love most about this movie is the need to get together to help each other survive. As tough as some of the topics are covered, the story makes a compelling argument, we are our brothers' keepers and need to make the time to connect. It will save each-others lives.

This is such a raw, honest documentary and I think every American should watch it. It's about a problem that is easily swept under the carpet but shouldn't be. Without any graphic or gory depictions but with honest accounts this is a story depicting real life events that need to be heard. It's easy to say the military protect our rights and freedoms that we enjoy in this great country, but enlisting in the military, in this case the Marines, should not be a life (or death) sentence. Let's watch this and get a conversation started. How can we help?

OK, lets get a couple of things straight about veterans, PTSD and suicide.

Firstly multiple peer reviewed studies, of Afghanistan and Iraq era US and UK veterans, have shown that suicide rates are HIGHER for veterans who never served in combat compared to combat veterans. Surprised? The same thing is shown in studies of violent crime and domestic assult by veterans: It is those veterans that were never in combat that have the elevated commission rate.

What the studies show is that the issue is not combat or PTSD at all, but rather that during times of increased personnel uptake, the military takes in more ALREADY troubled young people. The military ends up detecting disorders during training, and not sending most of the personnel with disorders into combat. If they have a very serious disorder, they are usually discharged, but those with existing mild to moderate personality disorders, mental health issues, are not discharged since the military needs the personnel, they are just not sent into combat. It is that later group of people with EXISTING significant depression, moderate personality disorders, etc., and who never went into combat, that causes the entire elevation in veteran suicide per capita. Retrospective studies of WWII and Vietnam veterans has shown the same thing. Combat veterans actually had considerably lower suicide rates, in and after service than combat veterans did. And non-combat veterans had higher post service arrests, especially for violent crime. But in fact the data how this high suicide cohort also had 1) higher arrests, 2) higher unemployment, and 3) higher depression rates than average BEFORE joining the military.

For more info google: "Study: Mental illness, not combat, causes soldier suicides"

A couple of other points. Also of combat veterans who do commit suicide, the driving element of their depression is not a trauma they incurred during combat, but rather missing the camaraderie and excitement OF combat. It is more of a dopamine and endorphin withdrawal than anything to do with trauma. In fact the feeling among soldiers immediately after combat has been shown to be similar to after sexual activity/orgasm. Now that does not mean personnel in combat are excited by harming the enemy, but is postulated to b excitement from the shared intense bonding, and the risk (much like a frightening amusement park ride or film has been shown to create a post experience euphoria and bonding).

Lastly, multiple studies of coroner and medical examiner process when presented with self caused death and the determination of accident vs suicide, show that gun suicides are accurately counted but all other methods of suicide are profoundly undercounted. This is called "hidden suicide." This is why gun owners have a higher reported suicide rate, but do not have a higher self caused death rate. So if you have a population with access to firearms, and over 90% of veterans in the US are gun owners, that group is going to show up statistically as higher suicide rate, but may not be committing suicide at higher rates at all. Instead what we are seeing is the effect of the documented propensity of medical examiners to presume suicide with self inflicted gunshot; but also presume accident when dealing with a case of self caused death by other means -- even when those other means are known to be associated with, and likely to be, suicide. It is well established medical examiners are adverse to making a ruling of suicide, and will not do so without strong and absolute proof. We know that from Australia, where a fast and broad reduction of 75% gun access was initially thought to have reduced overall suicide rates, but where ten years later all the peer reviewed studies found it had not fallen at all -- just driven most suicide into "hidden suicide" wrongly recorded as accidental death. Hence self-caused death that was not gunshot, eg falls from buildings, self poisoning, certain types of drowning, asphyxia all sharply and broadly rose, exactly as firearm access fell. Google: "Revealed: Australia's suicide epidemic" to see the discovery that suicide never fell in Australia even when they initially thought it did. The underlying data showed simply that substitute means more likely to be incorrectly ruled accidental skyrocketed.

This documentary while informative, and highlights the struggles that a lot of us, 2/7 Marines face daily. The trailer was somewhat misleading as it appeared that the suicide epidemic in our unit would be discussed in depth which it was not. Our units fallen was not discussed at much length either, the reason why so many of us struggle was not emphasized enough as to why or unit has a 4 times higher suicide rate than any other in the Marine Corps. What about the members that went off to create non-profits such as Team Rubicon, which was started from fellow brothers in 2/7 Jake Wood, who created it in memory of Clay Hunt. What about the two New York Times articles that were written about our unit, which could have provided a lot more connections, interviews and stories to make a more indepth video. While this was a very amazing film to see, I would have like to see some men from Echo, Fox or Weapons in a 'updated edition', in a few years. Even though they mention in the film, that he reached out to hundreds, myself and a decent size group from Colorado and some from Texas have not heard a single word until we saw the trailer.

Having served with 2/7 in this specific and previous deployments, I would agree the combat was ferocious at times.

My struggle with the film is in the overall mental health of the guys shown, and how they truly feel after leaving this event. Mental recovery should be progressive, always moving forward. For some in this film, it was obviously evident they continue to struggle with self harm or suicidal ideation. How is it beneficial to be around only others like you? Professional help is needed at some point. My concern is that viewers will take this film, and believe it in its entirety. Possibly even walk away with the "yep, I knew they were all crazy" impression. No, we are not. Many of us have gone on to live/have very successful lives. I heard numerous accounts or "stories" being brought up that aren't true. I think my name is even mentioned in one of them. What are you even talking about guys? Again, I was there. It didn't happen that way, or any way for that matter. Recounting events is one thing. Making them up as you go is another. It's just as unhealthy to remember events incorrectly as it may have been to actually be there for it.

I also would've preferred there be a more distinct line drawn between the struggle(s) and the solution. Simply getting together and talking about hurting or killing yourself isn't helpful to anyone. If more in-depth, corrective conversations happened, they didn't show it in this film, or even hint directly at there being any. A list of resources would've also been nice to see in there somewhere.

Ditto on the comment about invites. I didn't even realize this was a thing until YouTube told me about it. These are all guys from a specific company within the battalion. I'm not entirely sure that so many invites were actually extended.