and called Autistic Spectrum Disorder. My son has the inattentive type. He scored 2250 on is SAT, gets straight As and is an accomplished musician. I don't consider him to have a mental illness. He is pretty spacey a lot of the time and easily distracted, but he is extremely bright, as is the case with many ADD kids. Most of the time, he seems like a normal teenage kid.

The law is concern if someone is competent, i.e. know how to take care of him or herself, knows what he or she owns, who are their heirs and family members and that they are capable of knowing right from wrong AND not a danger to themselves or others,

Competency is a very minimal standard, people with an IQ of 60 have been ruled competent (I suspect people with lower IQ have also been competent but have no data to support that statement).

Psychiatry and Psychology deal with treating people who have mental problems. Most people seeking such help are competent. They may not be employable, but are competent (Employabilty is the test for Social Security Disability not competency). I often mention that Winston Churchill of WWII Fame was know to be Manic-Depressive, now call "Bi-polar". When he was up, he was on top of the game, but when he was done Churchill did some stupid things (Such as sinking the French Fleet when France Surrendered to Germany during WWII).

I like bringing up Churchill for, while he was Bi-Polar, that did not make him unemployable (He was a writer and speaker between WWI and WWII and a minster in the British Government off an on from WWI till 1953).

Thus Attention Deficient Hyper-Activity Disorder (ADHD) is treated by Psychiatrists and Psychologists is listed in DSM-IV AND DSM-V (DSM-V came out in May 2013)


https://www.msu.edu/course/cep/888/ADHD%20files/DSM-IV.htm

http://www.dsm5.org/Documents/ADHD%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

Thus Attention Deficient Hyper-Activity Disorder (ADHD) is something Psychiatrists and Psychologists will treat as a mental illness, but often does not make someone incompetent or unemployable.

but they could obviously do a better job of weeding out those with serious problems. Now that the military is being downsized they need to be a lot more picky who they allow to enlist.

Last edited Tue Mar 4, 2014, 10:26 AM - Edit history (1)

Say it means that they can recall certain disabilities because they were preexisting conditions, etc.

They say 1 in 4 adults suffer from some sort of diagnosable disorder in a given year.

to fill the recruitment gaps during the Irag War..so now this is surprising.

<But it also found that the suicide rate among soldiers who had never deployed also rose steadily during that time. The study did not explain the cause.>

<In addition, the military would not meet its recruiting targets if it were able to identify and exclude everybody with a history of mental health problems, experts said.

During the peak years of war, as the military was struggling to fill its ranks, some recruiters were known to discourage applicants from disclosing such problems.>

We lied! Duh! Most people who join the military, do so for purely economic reasons. We also come from lower socio- econmic classes that are more prone to abuse, pyschological and genetic pre-disposition to mental illness. Plus, who in their right mind would volunteer for the BS we put up with? Is anyone honestly surprised?

Did it peak at 80%? Or more?

How many enter college with mental illness as defined in the OP? Why are they asking about the army?

From the OP: "The question becomes, 'How did these guys get in the Army?'" Well, what is the suicide rate in high schools? What is it in colleges? Should we be asking, how did these guys get in college?

Veterans are more than twice as likely as other civilians to commit suicide.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-veteran-deaths-20131217-dto,0,382875.htmlstory#ixzz2v1X28RCj

Yes, it IS all over.

Traditionally, the Army has been psychologically healthier than the rest of society because of screening, fitness standards and access to healthcare. Soldiers committed suicide at about half the rate of civilians with similar demographics.

So you got nothing?

Vets can be 80 years old. Please compare apples with apples.

It gives a good excuse for employers not to hire vets. Congratulations.

Depression is treatable. So is PTSD. We must give the vets in need the treatment they are entitled to, without forcing them to endure years of bureaucratic delay.

To reduce those delays, we must give the VA more resources, more counselors, more treatment facilities. The VA won't get that unless we honestly quantify the problem. The VA might still not get it if the GOP has its way, but we should at least try.

we used to call being restless, daydreamer, etc..
Depression? Almost everyone goes through this at times.
I agree that the "mental illness' in the OP is in no way indicative of how a soldier should be selected.
Being a gang-banger, felon, etc. may be, unless that person has straightened their life out.
As another poster pointed out, enlisting is usually a socio-economic necessity and these young people are trying to improve their lives or at least trying to escape poverty and the "disorders" that poverty visits on most of us.
I see this as more of an attempt by "our" govt. to claim a pre-existing condition and/or falsifying employment information.
Jobs, especially full time jobs with the possibility of a career or free training are almost non-existent in our present economy.
Especially such Unions are becoming extinct by design.
PTSD is real and living near an army base, I see so many young people affected by it.
The real enemy is the rampant inequality in our society.
I do believe that if the draft were reinstated there would be fewer wars and automatons willing to defend the govt. (PTB)
rather than the constitution which they are sworn to protect.
My teen aged Son went off his ADHD meds (which were really helping his grades) because he views the army as his shot at a career.
I prefer a trade Union but we reside in Tn.

Doesn't simply having the condition call into question his ability to serve?

Hi there, I'd like a job where somebody can simply tell me to walk in front of everybody else and when I get shot, the rest will know that there is somebody out there trying to shoot us. In a war.

And I'm there to kill everyone I can find that doesn't have the same shirt as me.

Yep. Perfectly sane.

Nothing a few years of being isolated, dehumanized, underpaid, overworked, complicit in war crimes, discharged and permanently out of work can't fix. Builds character.

I've kinda accepted that as just being part of being human. I occasionally get panic attacks out of the blue (maybe once a year,if that), should that really be something that makes me disqualified to do certain things? If so, which things? Should not be able to drive, fly planes, operate heavy machinery, be around children, be around old folks, handle cash, run for office, or whatever else? I'd think the high suicide rates might have more to do with them being in combat, or away from home on extremely long extended tours (not sure if they are still doing that) than the fact they have ADHD or suffered from depression at one point in their life.

doesn't matter if they can handle it or not. MIC sees them, any soldier, as expendable.

My nephew who is mentally ill, joined the AF around 1999. His condition was not disclosed prior, but during boot camp, they realized that something wasn't right, and he was sent home with about $5000, which he promptly blew in Tijuana. Some people are just really good at faking it for awhile, but the shit will eventually hit the fan.

"Most notably, more than 8% of soldiers entered the Army with intermittent explosive disorder, characterized by uncontrolled attacks of anger. It was the most common disorder in the study, with a pre-enlistment prevalence nearly six times the civilian rate."

After service a lot of our military go on to become our police, prison and security guards.

No wonder we have so many police with anger problems.