Active shooter at NAS Pensacola

[GroundPounder]

"If Allah wills it, it will recover."

If true.... I'm totally speechless.

Much different context, and 30 plus years ago, but we had 3 Saudi students in my Infantry Officer Basic Class. During field problems their answer to contingency questions was almost universally that. " If Allah wills X, it will happen " It was amazing, because to all outward appearances that was really their mindset. If it happens it happens, and if not, it wasn't to be....

There are a few other lasting impressions I have of those guys; 1. They would drop out of PT runs approx 25 yards into the run, as we passed our BOQ rooms. They would go in, and reappear at the rally point for that days training. 2. They only ever wore the same uniforms, which were similar to our class B uniforms at the time, with weird brown dress type shoes. In the field, garrison whatever, that's what they wore. All three of the guys pants were about 3 inches too long, and had worn out little half moons around the heel where they had stepped on them for so long.

We had two guys from Jordan, one of which was very similar to that, and 1 that would have been considered an outstanding solider by any measure.

 

[Gatordev]

Interesting article . . .

What Really Happened at NAS Pensacola, and Why – DB DAILY UPDATE

That article is a mess. Not wholly incorrect, but not completely correct either. @DanMa1156 already hit a bunch of highlights.

 

[robav8r]

That article is a mess. Not wholly incorrect, but not completely correct either. @DanMa1156 already hit a bunch of highlights.

I said it was interesting. The author certainly makes a few salient points though . . .

 

[Gatordev]

I said it was interesting. The author certainly makes a few salient points though . . .

I don't disagree. It's just a shame they get interspersed with the noise.

 

[Swanee]

It might also help to make behavioral health one of the stops during your annual flight physical. Or, if we are going to want a real opportunity to help someone, just a mandatory once a year sit down with a LCSW. Those folks, even the ones working for the Navy, are pretty fucking sharp and can catch stuff most uneducated observers wont.

The Navy makes me take an HIV test every year even though my risk of contracting that (as a married, non-drug user) is infinitely lower than having unresolved stress or anxiety issues. Sure, it's more time intensive...but wouldnt it be worth it?

But then we'd have to take mental health seriously, and take legitimate steps to get our members healthy before they get so sick they make terrible, permanent choices, or have to be medically separated.

The SSgt telling the LCpl to suck it up and kill the enemy works well to train folks to ignore everything else and accomplish the mission (and mission accomplishment is indeed #1 priority) in the short term, but it is in stark contrast with priority #2 (troop welfare) for the long term.

What's the answer? I don't know.

 

[Angry]

But then we'd have to take mental health seriously, and take legitimate steps to get our members healthy before they get so sick they make terrible, permanent choices, or have to be medically separated.

The SSgt telling the LCpl to suck it up and kill the enemy works well to train folks to ignore everything else and accomplish the mission (and mission accomplishment is indeed #1 priority) in the short term, but it is in stark contrast with priority #2 (troop welfare) for the long term.

What's the answer? I don't know.

See those two priorities were my DI's parting words of wisdom at OCS. But the point that he made that I think people miss is that priority #2 enables priority #1. If your troops are sick, dying, or dead, good luck winning the war.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

But the point that he made that I think people miss is that priority #2 enables priority #1. If your troops are sick, dying, or dead, good luck winning the war.

That practice of Full Metal Jacket to train the troops in USMC style stems from a different times and - what is more important - different wars: when every even civilian guy had been placed under draft condition every 25 or so years, so one has to face the war at least once during his generation's active part of life. But those wars as Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart wrote, were quite long to be killed and quite short to become a true warrior who really knows this priorities' mutual relationships, thus amount of people who held the war inside for the rest of the life was very little. Nowadays wars are constant and boring so there's a lot of people who knows how to kill and treat this knowledge as the single possible method of solving any problems arose in life, and their behavior is completely unacceptable by the society as whole. That is why the draft is needed: if any society has something constant in everyday reality - war with terrorism may or may not be global but it surely is constant factor of modern times for majority of nations - then average society's member has to know how to conduct it and win it. The only way to provide this is military draft equal to some degree to Israeli State (minus women). I seriosely doubt there is true hazing there.

 

[antonkr]

That practice of Full Metal Jacket to train the troops in USMC style stems from a different times and - what is more important - different wars: when every even civilian guy had been placed under draft condition every 25 or so years, so one has to face the war at least once during his generation's active part of life. But those wars as Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart wrote, were quite long to be killed and quite short to become a true warrior who really knows this priorities' mutual relationships, thus amount of people who held the war inside for the rest of the life was very little. Nowadays wars are constant and boring so there's a lot of people who knows how to kill and treat this knowledge as the single possible method of solving any problems arose in life, and their behavior is completely unacceptable by the society as whole. That is why the draft is needed: if any society has something constant in everyday reality - war with terrorism may or may not be global but it surely is constant factor of modern times for majority of nations - then average society's member has to know how to conduct it and win it. The only way to provide this is military draft equal to some degree to Israeli State (minus women). I seriosely doubt there is true hazing there.

Not to stray too off topic but barring a 9-11 scale event, I doubt that any chance of a draft being at all followed in US. People are rightfully so skeptical of being forced to go to war, and our country is big and volunteers ample. Not to mention that the rich douchy kids who would benefit from the draft would certainly dodge it like they always have. And this is coming from someone actively dodging letters from voenkomat.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

And this is coming from someone actively dodging letters from voenkomat.

Got me I don't suppose Russian experience is even remotely relevant, our kind of draft is stupid and unfair. But what about Israeli people - look, they certainly have solid benefits from serving in military and all society totally understands what to do if something dangerous is happening. Not definitely terror or military attack - any sort of natural disaster too.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

Another point of view: does civilian PPL training contains a sparks of hazing/bulling equal to military one? If so - i.e. if instructors there are using the harsh jokes and personal offends to a degree - then it is immanent feature of any aviation training. If not - this is immanent to military world. As a former shipdriver I can tell that there isn't polite and smooth training of shipdrivers no matter are they naval or merchant marine - everyone has to pass the cruelty of the sea and people's indifference, tireness and other limitations

 

[RobLyman]

What's the difference between a CEO and a sociopath?...Nothing. Most high level executives exhibit many sociopathic traits. Torturing small animals or ruining hundreds of peoples lives as a result of your executive decisions; what's worse? The crux of the mental illness challenge is identifying/diagnosing the mental illness in someone and then making decisions on what the thresholds are for implementing legal or forceful action.

One Thanksgiving at my house several years ago my sister took the conversation off the deep end by announcing that anyone who had deployed to a combat zone should be prohibited from purchasing/owning a firearm for two years.

Me: "I just came back from a combat zone, does that apply to me?"
Sister: "Well you don't have firearms anyway."
Me: Eyebrow raises
Sister: "I mean, to a real combat zone. You know, where people are being shot and killed."
Me: "What do you think I do on deployment?"
Sister: …...
Me: "You know I'm a medevac pilot, right?"

The litmus that the general public likes to use, at least in this case, is WAY off. I think law makers are every bit as clueless.

So how do you decide who can and cannot possess a firearm? The military nearly drives us to suicide with suicide prevention training. They teach abstract concepts about resiliency. Yet I think that in no way do they prepare Joe Soldier for the smorgasbord of emotion caused by a douche bag NCO, the laundry losing their underwear, the DFAC being out of whatever, their Blue Falcon buddy skipping out of their duties AGAIN, IDF at the FOB, their buddy dying, blah blah blah. They manage to get through all of that seemingly without adverse effects. At the end, it's their dog pissing on the carpet when they get home that finally sets them off. Who knew?

 

[bubblehead]

The military does not have the resources to psychologically evaluate people returning from a mobilization or a deployment, let alone evaluate people before they leave to determine their actual risk factors.

Some people are simply not mentally equipped to handle the stressors.

 

[Hotdogs]

But then we'd have to take mental health seriously, and take legitimate steps to get our members healthy before they get so sick they make terrible, permanent choices, or have to be medically separated.

The SSgt telling the LCpl to suck it up and kill the enemy works well to train folks to ignore everything else and accomplish the mission (and mission accomplishment is indeed #1 priority) in the short term, but it is in stark contrast with priority #2 (troop welfare) for the long term.

What's the answer? I don't know.

See those two priorities were my DI's parting words of wisdom at OCS. But the point that he made that I think people miss is that priority #2 enables priority #1. If your troops are sick, dying, or dead, good luck winning the war.

Before we go off into blaming the system/institution yet again... Do some hard thinking about why these things are occurring. This isn’t a solely military problem, but statistical speaking something that is on the rise in the whole of society.

 

[squorch2]

society in the US.

 

[antonkr]

Another point of view: does civilian PPL training contains a sparks of hazing/bulling equal to military one? If so - i.e. if instructors there are using the harsh jokes and personal offends to a degree - then it is immanent feature of any aviation training. If not - this is immanent to military world. As a former shipdriver I can tell that there isn't polite and smooth training of shipdrivers no matter are they naval or merchant marine - everyone has to pass the cruelty of the sea and people's indifference, tireness and other limitations

Although I can't tell from personal experience, I doubt that anything you pay that much money for you would have people be major dicks to you.

The military does not have the resources to psychologically evaluate people returning from a mobilization or a deployment, let alone evaluate people before they leave to determine their actual risk factors.

Some people are simply not mentally equipped to handle the stressors.

With the amount of money in .mil budget, I am sure that finding some half-assed psych bachelor grads to at least do something would be potentially useful, or at least to deployments statistically more stressful.