Before I speak to the issue, the young people on this ship are no different than the youth on the street or in our colleges. I do not place the entire blame for their deaths on their shoulders. America’s suicide crisis – and the military’s – has been a long time coming and will continue to fester into the foreseeable future. 

I have some understanding of a sailor’s life during overhaul. I joined the USS Darter in 1966 while she was having a major overhaul in the Charleston Naval Shipyard. I know what it’s like to stand fire watches late into the night and early before the morning dawns as welders weld and shipfitters fit. I was young, dumb, and a 19-year-old petty officer 3rd class fresh out of sonar school – and a non-qual at that! (My fellow submariners will understand that note.). That Navy wasn’t the kinder, gentler Navy of today, and nobody expected to be treated with anything other than “do your duty!”. I was a cog in the machine and expected to be nothing more. I was loaned out to two other boats in the squadron which were deploying on operations and were short sonarmen with my skill identifier. (USS Amberjack and USS Trumpetfish) So not only was I new to my boat, but I was a stranger in a strange land as a hired gun on these boats. I say this to make the point that I’ve been there, done that, and have the t-shirt. 

These military suicides are not because of “toxic command climate” although the mob will clammer for the heads of the Captain, the XO, and the Command Master Chief. It is easier to lay the blame on them rather than face the underlying causes. Now I’m not going to say the leadership is perfect. They after all were raised by the same culture/society that produces these youth who are unable to withstand the trials of the life they have made for themselves. 

I participated in a US Pacific Command suicide prevention seminar at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, back in 2009. After asking what they would see as an acceptable suicide rate – and being told it should be zero – I said to the disapproving murmurs of my small group that we would look back to the suicide numbers of 2009 and marvel that they were so low. I was right, and the group think was wrong. The bandaid of social workers and mental health professionals that we have applied to our schools, and military units have done nothing to treat the causes of the thinking that makes suicide an option to life. 

I’ll let someone else write the book on this subject, but here’s a brief sketch of the causes of military suicide as I see it. 

1. The scourge of feminism. Feminism is the mother of abortion, homosexuality and transgenderism, divorce and polygamy, and the feminization of the American male. Those bearded gym rats with their six-packs and tattoos are sham men. They are pretty boys who preen before the mirror, but they have no understanding of what it means to be a man who will do his duty though the heavens fall. They will spend thousands on cars and “lifestyle” but are unwilling to commit to marriage, family, and the duty of citizenship in the community. So, feminism has given us several generations now of fake men who do not know the joy of being a man and who crumble under the load that genuine manhood brings. They can press their body weight, but they can’t carry a family for a lifetime. In addition, feminism has given us women who do not want to be a complement to a husband. The American woman wants to compete with men, and as the recent kerfuffle over men competing in women’s sports has demonstrated, they cannot do “man things” as well as men can, and this gives them added stress. 

2. The military was uniquely suited to turn boys into men. I was 17 when I enlisted in the Navy, and at 17 the Navy expected me to be a man. I wasn’t a man when I joined, but I quickly grew into what was expected of me. I say, “was,” because the women’s elements of Army, Navy, and Marines were integrated into the all-male military back in the 70s and military standards were weakened to accommodate female sensibilities and capabilities. Women are incredibly strong in their God-given areas. In their arena they can do things that make a strong man shudder, but they are not men without boy parts. Women and men are not interchangeable, yet the American public pretends that they are, and feminist activists demand that we all engage in this charade. In the name of equality, our military, wherever women are integrated, produces weaker men and less capable units. They are weaker because they are not stressed to their full capabilities in their training in order to accommodate the women in the unit – the men have to move slower so the women can keep up. 

3. America has forfeited its soul. I can’t put my finger on the decade when this forfeiture began, but I can look around and see that it no longer has one. The core of a man, the core of a woman, the core of a nation is a knowledge of God. But we have been raising generations to believe they have no higher authority than their own wishes and desires. “To thine own self be true,” has become the American dream and the result is men without chests (to quote a little C.S. Lewis). A man or a woman who doesn’t acknowledge that there is a God who has ultimate authority to define and declare what is right and what is wrong has no central core to keep them from swaying in the winds of adversity. To semi-quote Dennis Prager, without God you can BELIEVE self-murder is wrong, but you cannot KNOW self-murder is wrong. If there is no absolute authority who stands outside our self-governance, all social guidance is just opinion. In the decline, and decline it is, since America quit worshipping God, our inner core has become a shadow and a memory. And people without a core break easily. 

4. The church and the nation now accord the same honors to a person who kills himself as to one who dies nobly. This must not be! That sounds harsh I know. Shouldn’t we minister to the sorrowing? But having an honors ceremony for a sailor who has committed suicide encourages other weak souls to follow suit. I may have great concern for the derelict who steals to support herself, but without fear of punishment, crime increases. So it is with suicide. If we do not declare suicide a dishonorable act, we enable future suicides. There was a day not long ago when the church refused burial in the church cemetery to a suicide. Later generations of clergy thought that cruel and opened their arms and graves. But what looked merciful at the moment removed a barrier to the despairing considering suicide and invited them to do likewise. In the same manner with the military, a suicide was a “line of duty, no.” If a service member committed suicide, survivor benefits were not paid to his estate and honors were not rendered. Again, this is harsh, but its abandonment has removed a barrier to choosing a permanent solution to a temporary problem. 

5. The scourge of social media. The social media to which the young (and not so young) are addicted is awash with affirming suicide as a legitimate life choice. It is glamorized instead of being denigrated, and being treated with sympathy and understanding, it increases its attraction and its occurrence. 

6. Sex. There is continual competition within the ranks for the sexual favors of the young women – and occasionally, the young men in a unit. That was true in my first mixed gender unit in 1987. It was a shock to see young female privates and specialists new to the unit being pursued. The men acted like a pack of hounds competing over a bitch in heat. And until she would either choose one as her mate of the moment or declare herself a lesbian, she had no peace. All branches of the military have huge bureaucracies dedicated to managing the sexual drives of their members, but adding layers of bureaucracy will never change human nature, and if it does, it only produces eunuchs and whores.

You could, no doubt add to my list if you’re honest about the current state of the American spirit. Suffice it to say that we have a much weaker social fabric and a much weaker military than we once had. This weakened social structure produces people who have no authority higher than their own passions and desires. And those passions and desires can never be fully met by the military or the career or the most recent “fiancé.”