“With great powers come great responsibilities” – Spiderman.
We all have visualized this scene upon reading the quote, hero in a mask, saving humanity while fighting his demons. But we are not here to discuss the fictional character. We will be discussing the heroes who save the humanity every minute, day and night. These heroes sometimes whose valor’s even gone unrecognized, maybe after some time we even forget who were they? still they fight, fight for us, to save their motherland.
Yes, you have guessed it correct. Today is all about our unmasked heroes, our forces (Army, Navy, Air force) and military personnel and their fight with the invisible adversary, constantly, Mental Health.
Every one of us in our life has met these heroes may be in our family (our father, mother, brother, or sister), or might be residing in our neighbor. They always tend us to amuse us with their polished shoes, maybe stars on their shoulder, their dress, and discipline in their life.
But one thing which is most common in these heroes is their attitude towards life, always smiling, ready to die for their motherland. Have we guessed, what they are hiding behind their smile, the burden they are carrying, or the pain which they are taking the day to day without discussing with anyone.
A recent article in Economic Time (dated 4th December 2019) shows that more than 1000 of our soldiers are suspected to suicide in armed forces from 2010-2019(891 took place in the army, 182 in the air force and 40 in the navy) and these are the numbers which have been officially released by our government but the count may go up. Another very popular news portal “the wire”, tries to explain how being a soldier can take up a toll on your psychology. In their article, they have explained about a renowned soldier Private Harry Farr who was executed young at the tender age of 25 because of his cowardice during the war.
How his condition hyperacusis (condition due to damaged ear because of shelling, making even small noises extremely painful) caused his court-martial and eventually his life. He was just provided 20 minutes to defend himself in that mental trauma.
What might cause this amount of stress to take this extreme step?
There might be various reasons including but not limited to:
- Adjusting to different environments
- Financial advances
- Staying away from families for a long time
- Mental coping strength to a certain situation
- Denial of leaves
- Lack of basic amenities
- Military sexual trauma(MST)
Even after the retirement the soldiers which have been part of various wars or counter-insurgencies plan (regions like J&k and North East) have been diagnosed with problems like PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder), detachment, lack sleep, appetite, hypervigilance, mistrust, etc. But even that is not enough, there are numerous cases where they even had to wrest their rightful benefits after painful and long-fought court battles. Constantly making the scenarios more painful.
Not just the soldiers but their families have to suffer a lot because of the trauma faced by them. In many cases, things can end up as horrendous as murder or suicide, if not detected or treated on time.
I have tried my best to find out the facts and figures on the site, I listened lot of available videos and audios on the internet but couldn’t decide if we are helping them enough to fight their demons while they are fighting ours.
On every news channel, we always hear that experts are debating about how lacks of facilities (materialistic) are responsible for the death of our soldiers but rarely have a discussion about their mental struggle. Have we already pre-assumed that the tough people do not require mental attention or we are so stubborn to acknowledge that they are human too.
It’s high time to acknowledge their pain; their struggle due to mental stress. How much more soldiers we have to lose more before it’s too late; how much more time we need to realize that they need our support too in the darker days.
Every soldier needs a good comrade who can help him in battle. Can’t we be that one? Can’t we just stand their back in solidarity as they have ours?
Credit: Santosh Kumar Bawari
