How do we recognize the danger that may stem from mental illness that efffects how we live on bases today in the military?

Playing devil's advocate, I could say that it is not easy, maybe almost impossible to detect mental illness among our ranks because we are used to see it, and consider it normal.

Sometimes we see our Soldiers acting crazy, shake our heads, and go about our business. We try to be s gung ho and mission oriented that we disregard the human side of soldiering.

This guy who killed those people in Hood, he was given 1 day to go to her mother's funeral. Later, they extended it to two days.

I am not trying to blame anyone, but sometimes we have no clue about what we are doing. Being Puerto Rican, like the guy that did the massacre in Fort Hood, I can tell you that I told my supervisor and my S1 in 1997 to get ready to declare me AWOL because my mother had suffered a heart attack on Saturday, it was Tuesday, and my leave had not being approved. I was a SFC at the time, and she died on my way to see her.

Was it PTSD, or mental illness? Or was it lousy leadership? We might never know.

But my thoughts to you are:

1. Be aware of your surroundings.

2. Being aware of your surroundings also include being aware of your troops emotions.

3. Being emotional is not a mental illness and it is not being a coward.

4. Consider that people experience tragedy in different ways.

5. How you deal with tragedy when you are in combat, s totally different of how you deal with it in Garrison. There is no reason to give 1 day leave in Garrison to someone who is grieving. If you are so worried about him returning, send someone with him, If he is that indispensable, you are doing something wrong as a leader.