When I joined the military in 2004, it was because I was near suicidal and felt that I needed to change something or I might die. ...I was young and stupid. I'm probably still stupid. :)
See, I was poor. I had done very well on standardized tests and received a full-ride scholarship with a stipend, but then I failed out of college, probably due to depression... So there I was without a lot of prospects in front of me, and I chose that moment to start drinking, for the first time. 2003 went by in a blur.
I woke up one day and realized that here I was in a small town in Arkansas, working in some approximation of a box factory which paid just enough for rent and nothing more, never anything more. I knew that I must alter my path dramatically.
So, I walked in to the only place in the world where I knew I'd get hired on the spot.
To their credit, they did make a man of me. That was what I wanted. To be changed. You know, discipline and all that.
(It wore off after a little while, and I can't say honestly that I don't miss it.)
Back to my point: young white American men that enlist in the military aren't a random selection of young white American men.
A strong majority of the members of that demographic in my Flight who I spoke with about why they joined had similar stories: the military is widely known as an option, and for many, it's the second to last option.
Thanks for sharing. It inspired me to read more into the article. All we really get from it is that there has been a drop in combat deaths. I'm not a fan of the military but this article is just white noise.
There's no denominator or basis for understanding what the numbers mean.
If we're looking to investigate suicides in the military then we need to compare it against appropriate baselines, accounting for the types of issues daveloyall raises, and even the economy.
Here's wikipedia's suicide rates for comparison:
US Men: 19.2
US Women: 5.5
Military: 17.1
What surprises me is that the military suicide rate in combat zones (17.3) is lower than military in the US (19.2)
Your story very much mirrors my own, at the time it was the best option for someone with no money and a GED. The experience was something that I needed. But I did become jaded very quickly by what I saw around me.
My time in uniform was a net positive, yet I really don't find myself identifying very closely with other vets or the post-military "remember those good old crazy times?" culture at large. Some things about it all just depress me.
Maybe I've just been out for long enough now, but just this morning I found myself missing that life. I would have retired with 20 years in 2016 had I stayed in.
Now for sure I don't miss power-drinking in the dorms or on TDY, but the work was fun and the people were awesome. I still keep in touch with alot of them. In contrast, I haven't spoken with anyone I went to high school in years.
I'm pretty sure I'd be dead or locked in a jail cell if not for my four years in the USAF--second to last option indeed. Your point about the selection not being random could not be more spot on.
I feel like we were largely just misfits who somehow managed to find our way to a place where misfits can have one last shot at getting somewhere. Not all of us made it, but we who did were grateful that the opportunity was there.
I think the biggest reason why soldiers are killing themselves is that the Army throws drugs at the problem and then doesn't monitor the soldiers. Everyone I know in the Army was on "psycho" drugs at one time or another.
While serving in the Army, I found myself having symptoms of PTSD. Before this, I thought PTSD was for Vietnam or WWII vets. Anyway, the docs gave me handfuls of various meds (lithium, Haldol, Prozac, Risperdol, Seroquel, Clonopin, etc.) and did minimal monitoring. I would fall asleep in the parking lot of Landstuhl and barely remember what I was doing there. I became violent and beat my wife. I would become another person while I was on the meds. I was arrested for domestic violence and ordered to go to anger mngt, which was a joke. Everybody in my platoon was already there so it was just a way to get out of work and screw around. I trusted the docs to know what they were doing until I was at the edge of suicide/murder. Eventually, I stopped the meds (really tough aftereffect) and started dealing with the wreck my life had become. Most soldiers don't need meds, they need sleep and some one to talk to. The Army needs less psychiatrists and more psychologists.
Terrible. When I was in the Army, the policy was effectively "Ignore anything and everything that might hurt the numbers, until it becomes a PR. problem. Then, just toss the nearest private under the bus". It sounds like they've taken another step sideways since then.
Er... not sure that locking people up is cheaper. What it is is more profitable for lobbyists and prison companies, to the tune of $37 billion + per year!
A major problem for the military is the availability of guns (and people who are effective at firing them). In the UK we used to kill ourselves with gas from the stove (it had carbon monoxide in it) - when gas stopped having carbon monoxide people thought - 'well people will find another way of killing themselves' but they didn't - availability of way of killing yourself was a factor in suicide. There's no obvious solution for the military, since they need guns. However, we can say that as a group they are more likely to kill themselves as they have an effective means to commit suicide when they are depressed. In the way an office worker does not.
Wikipedia article on this subject:
------------------------------------------------
Lethal means reduction [edit]
Means reduction, reducing the odds that a suicide attempter will use highly lethal means, is an important component of suicide prevention.[17]
For years, researchers and health policy planners have theorized and demonstrated that restricting lethal means can help reduce suicide rates, as delaying action until depression passes.[18] There is strong evidence that restricted access at so-called suicide hotspots, such as bridges and cliffs, reduces suicides, whereas other interventions such as placing signs or increasing surveillance at these sites appears less effective.[19] One of the most famous historical examples, of means reduction, is that of coal gas in the United Kingdom. Until the 1950s, the most common means of suicide in the UK was poisoning by gas inhalation. In 1958, natural gas (virtually free of carbon monoxide) was introduced, and over the next decade, comprised over 50% of gas used. As carbon monoxide in gas decreased, suicides also decreased. The decrease was driven entirely by dramatic decreases in the number of suicides by carbon monoxide poisoning.[20][21]
A photo illustration produced by the Defense Media Agency on suicide prevention
In the United States, numerous studies have concluded that firearm access is associated with increased suicide completion.[22] "About 85% of attempts with a firearm are fatal: that’s a much higher case fatality rate than for nearly every other method. Many of the most widely used suicide attempt methods have case fatality rates below 5%.".[23][24]
>A major problem for the military is the availability of guns (and people who are effective at firing them).
I think this is a bit misplaced in the context of the US military.
Firearms are very tightly controlled on bases. The only people with guns at any given time are people that have an active reason for having them, e.g., guard duty, MP, training, etc. It's not like there are M16s just piled up in the barracks. It's one of the reasons the shootings at Ft. Hood were so deadly; despite taking place in the middle of a major military base, there wasn't anyone nearby with a firearm to respond like many people imagine to be the case.
You are correct about availability of firearms in general being associated with suicide rates, but I'm just pointing out that, in the US, military doesn't equate to easier access than the general population.
You do have easier access in the sense that you have _regular_ access to weapons and ammunition. You don't have _on demand_ access, so you can't often make impulsive decisions with firearms. You can, however, make planned decisions fairly easily.
For that to follow, you'd have to show that a significant proportion of the suicides by firearm by stateside service members involved government firearms. I sincerely doubt that's the case.
High places and trains are pretty ubiquitous, and are commonly used for the purpose of ending oneself.
Is it not also possible that correlation does not lead to causation, as the presence of CO in coal gas led to elevated CO in homes and anywhere else gas was used (i.e. everywhere), and CO is well known to cause depression through long-term low-dose exposure?
The problem with the case you are making is that the majority of this so-called 'epidemic' is among non-active duty men, and there is some debate as to whether the suicide rate is higher than a comparable sample of the general population.[1]
This is pretty poor logic. The guns are close to the soldiers because: warfighting. Warfighting is difficult and stressful, regardless of the presence of Guns. Its like saying the presence of trading monitors or tall buldings causes suicide during a stock market crash.
Allow me to paint a picture for you purely from my experience in the Army.
It appears from the article that these were active duty deaths. Alcoholism is rampant in the Army. Alcohol is a downer. PTSD is rampant in the Army which means you're surrounded by people who might have anger issues or might be emotionally withdrawn (hah! understatement). Those same people might be your superiors. So you have a sadistic emotionally detached superior who controls your life. Maybe not, maybe you have great leaders, maybe you're the person struggling with alcoholism, depression, survivor guilt, nightmares, hyper awareness. Also, the Army's answer to psychological issues is pills, some of which can make things worse. There is a stigma associated with needing a hug. Also, "kids these days" (see the other comment about millennials, it is a thing). There was a book I read (forgot the title) that was veteran studies published after WWII. One of the ones that stood out to me the most showed that vets who came from stable homes faired better (emotionally) after war. If you are in the Army you didn't likely grow up in a stable emotional environment.
Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results that it produces. By system I mean all the inputs. I don't know, when you look at this picture, what would you expect to happen? Also, there's no easy fix.
Not only are suicides more likely to happen with military and veterans, but it is only recently that suicides in the military went from below general population, to higher than general population.
That suggests to me that the structure of the military would generally have significant effects of reducing depression, or maybe just the type of person joining the military is/was less likely to be depressed, but now it seems reasonable that maybe the nature of our military services today causes potentially more stable men and women to be more likely than ordinary to commit suicide.
"Although historically, the suicide death rates in the U.S. Army have been below the civilian rate, the suicide rate in the U.S. Army began climbing in the early 2000s, and by 2008, it exceeded the demographically matched civilian rate (20.2 suicide deaths per 100,000 vs. 19.2). Concerns about this increase led to a partnership between the Army and the NIMH to identify risks."
If these were sample statistics, no, but these are population numbers. They aren't sampling 100K people and seeing how many commit suicide, they know how many suicides are reported in the entire population.
> now it seems reasonable that maybe the nature of our military services today causes potentially more stable men and women to be more likely than ordinary to commit suicide.
Suicide is an extremely complex issue. I don't think it's fair to reason about the causes of suicide. Hearing from suicide survivors would likely permit bias to be reduced. These are not simple issues. Cause and effect are woven together with thousands of tiny little knots, when complexities like these develop.
I know it's a bit far fetched but another hypothesis would be that previous wars were deadlier for US soldiers and it was easier for a depressed soldier to get killed during combat (by being reckless for example). I know if I was both suicidal and a soldier, I'd probably just stick my head out of the trench a bit longer than my comrades or volunteer for the dangerous missions. Probably not the most likely explanation though.
Perhaps conditions make it more difficult and/or less socially acceptable to cover it up, out of pity for the family which might have been the priority decades ago. So he caught a bullet and the guy who fired it is definitely dead, telling the family more isn't necessarily going to make them any happier. On the theory that not covering it up might reduce overall suffering long term, which is Probably true, or at least we'd like to think so.
Also need to follow the gravy train. Once someone starts getting a paycheck for a problem, that problem is never going away and on paper will always expand. Seventy years ago an infantryman who dived on a live grenade to save his whole squad of buddies was simply a dead hero. Today, if the dude is a white upper middle class straight guy from a stable family with no addiction problems and a decent credit score and stable romantic relationships, then, aside from being almost a unicorn, he would still be a (dead) hero in that grenade situation, but any demographic discrepancy could indicate to someone with a counseling / research paycheck depending on finding a problem, that racism in the .mil might have driven that poor downtrodden soldier to suicide, etc. This is probably a very small effect, but if you don't follow the money you're not doing due diligence.
I just finished the book Acid Test (http://www.amazon.com/Acid-Test-Ecstasy-Power-Heal/dp/039916...). The stories about the progress that the lucky individuals, who have been part of MDMA therapy studies for PTSD, have made; combined with government's refusal to fund research as well as their stonewalling during permitting (DEA primarily) is heartbreaking and infuriating.
The author quotes some numbers about how much the US Dept of Defense and Veterans Affairs Administration spend (and are projected to spend) "treating" PTSD in veterans over the coming decades. They are shockingly large and unfortunately the US keeps sending more meat into the grinder.
I'm currently listening to an audiobook about the Falklands War. 649 Argentinians died in a horrific but short (2 months) conflict, but they claim since then more than 649 of the surviving soldiers have committed suicide, and PTSD remains a huge issue with both Argentine and British veterans.
I've listened to presentations by Combat Stress, a UK charity that works with veterans with mental health issues. Surprisingly it is veterans of Northern Ireland that have the greatest number of mental health issues, not those involved in what we might think of as more active wars.
I can see parallels with what many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are suffering, the constant threat of attack and a local populace you are supposed to be protecting. Yet in NI the populace was British, the cognitive disconnect must have been tremendous.
And the Irish were losing friends, family, and people they knew from the neighbourhood growing up. Whereas in the military it was guys you went to basic with. Which is similar to family but not as deep rooted.
It's meaningful regardless of whether one number is increasing or the other is decreasing.
If, as I suspect, the military spends vastly more time and money trying to prevent combat deaths than trying to help suicidal soldiers and veterans, then this statistic suggests that their priorities are out of whack.
How is it out-of-whack?
For the sake of the argument if they have $1 billion to spend and if spending it on combat deaths prevention saves say 1000 people, while spending it on suicide reduction gets you 10 then it seems very reasonable to spend money on decreasing combat deaths.
More than anything this statistic speaks to the overwhelming military superiority of the U.S. military. The number of deaths for the U.S. military is quite small in relation to the numbers involved and the length of time of the occupation.
A very large majority of deaths have been the native populace. Such a disparity of casualties leads to a situation where war does not seem as bad as it really is by the American public. We're supposed to be aghast that suicide is a greater cause of death than the 'enemy'.
Nobody wants to admit the leading cause of suicide in the military, probably in society in general, because it is politically sensitive. There is fear that announcing the leading demographic outright might make matters worse before it gets better. I have been a soldier in the US Army for 17 years, and the FBI has likely identified the cause of this trend using statistics.
The leading cause for suicide in the US military is that society is generally becoming increasingly incompatible with military service. The demographic least likely to commit suicide of any age range are black females. The demographic most likely to commit suicide are white males under the age of 25. It should be known that suicides occur among all races, genders, and ages. The problem, however, is not that suicide occurs but the quantity and trends with which it occurs.
The cultural generation born between the mid 1990-2005 are referred to as Millennials. This group is the first born into a world where the internet has always existed and divorce among their parents stands at record highs. This group is less willing to make social commitments, expects constant social feedback, and delays making life changing decisions longer than previous generations. Of particular concern is that this group tends to be nurtured more directly and longer than previous generations even while relationships of their elders disintegrate more rapidly.
In previous generations people learn some hard life lessons early in life. Not everybody gets to be a winner. Time is short. If you screw-up there is a punishment. Quitting is not acceptable when people depend upon you. Life isn't fair. Many Millennials are shielded from these harsh lessons by over protective guardians.
This profound change in social development has numerous consequences. Withdrawal from society and intimacy are perhaps the most common consequence for society generally. In the military you cannot hide from society, so simply withdrawing is not an option.
The military is also a highly confrontational environment. Positive confrontations are often regarded as a necessary quality in successful corporate environments, but not everybody is well prepared for communication that is so direct. Typically the confrontations in the corporate world are soft or rare for entry level positions, where the opposite is true in the military.
Historically military training has attempted to prepare people for this. Basic training is extremely confrontational and not in a positive way, but basic training is also a safe environment. In earlier times basic training was less safe thereby increasing stress for attendees. If a person is not sufficiently stressed during their entry level training they are ill-prepared to manage such stresses when their career becomes at risk.
divorce among their parents stands at record highs
The fact that you think this is inherently bad is odd.
It happens largely because: a) The nuclear family is mostly sustainable in times of economic prosperity, b) Divorce used to entail far larger social consequences in the past. Women were generally more dependent, as well. Staying with someone you don't like out of some perverse ideological duty like yours is far worse than divorcing them.
This group is less willing to make social commitments
Social commitment as to what?
delays making life changing decisions longer than previous generations
This is a bad thing, again?
Not everybody gets to be a winner.
Did you listen to some rant about participation trophies in school and you're now extending it to some insidious, omnipresent cultural idea that children are being taught everyone's a winner?
Time is short.
Hasn't changed.
If you screw-up there is a punishment.
Hasn't changed.
Quitting is not acceptable when people depend upon you.
I keep observing this form of values dissonance amongst reactionaries like you. On one hand, they value nothing more than the spirit of individualism and free trade. On the other, they hold these vague ideals (which have never been widespread) that sound oddly collectivist in nature.
Life isn't fair.
Hasn't changed.
Withdrawal from society and intimacy
I don't recall previous generations being particularly positive with regards to sexuality (this hasn't changed: many are still puritanical, but from leftist perspectives).
Finally, here's a little thought. If all of this is true and Millennials are the end of the moral zenith as we know it, who do you think is responsible for raising them to be this way?
I'd actually like to point out that staying together with someone you don't like because you are obligated to (due to social norms or religious reasons or whatever) is not only bad for you, it's also bad for your children.
Parental divorce, especially if it happened in mutual agreement, is far better than a having parents constantly fight and being raised in an environment full of micro-aggressions and hostility.
Blaming failed marriages on divorce is blaming the symptoms for the disease. Social acceptance of divorce isn't making married couples fall out, failed relationships are. Pretending everything is fine won't make it so.
(insert obligatory comparison to drug decriminalization here)
You state that leading cause of suicide is basically that the youth of today (the "millenials") are spoiled and weak compared to previous generations. Right. So how do you explain that the highest increase in suicide rate is among the middle aged and elderly?
I think your comment is interesting, but breitbart.com? That is the worst of the worst on the net in terms of reliable information. While a broken clock is right twice a day, I would never read or trust anything on that site. The source matters.
Not all problems have solutions. The military has been applied to an unreasonable and impossible task. They may be no way to "get better" at doing that.
You might want to read Better Angels by Steven Pinker, which argues quite convincingly that things are getting better overall. "The news you recently read sticks in the mind, the worse news from long ago doesn't" etc. You may or may not be persuaded about all he says, but the book definitely helps build resistance to tragic headlines.
a bit hard to understand the figures in the real paper.
while the numbers have crossed, what about the absolutes? there are less deaths in combat now due to massive improvements in field treatment and armor. the total number of suicides in the armed forces is now higher than combat deaths and in civilian life, but it still could be lower overall than 20 years ago.
armchair analysis would be still, that if more service members survive injuries that would otherwise killed them before, there are more survivors now that try to live with massive traumas, amputations, mental disorders. if you come back from stan with no legs, massive PTSD and a missing jaw, well, you kill yourself afterwards. young people joining in frontline roles tend to be more athletic, more body conscious. your high school sweetheart will still marry you out of peer pressure, but 2 years in she won't like changing your diapers anymore.
(I am not a veteran. I merely know a few. All of the following is based on anecdotes.)
There is a small, but not insignificant, number of people who aggressively pursue naive young people in the military for monetary advantage. These range from predatory lenders to semi-professional spouses. The military employee becomes their golden ticket to enjoying the benefits of the military without taking on any of the risks.
If you can stay married for 20 years to a military person on active duty, you can retain a lot of the MWR and federal benefits that you were able to enjoy during that entire 20 years, even if you get divorced. If the military person dies, you and your children get survivor benefits. You might also be able to use their GI bill benefit while they are busy working.
So some people will marry someone in the military, then cheat on that person at every available opportunity, and spend as much of their reliable paycheck as possible, while enjoying military family benefits. For that sort of person, a war-zone deployment is like a vacation, with the added possibility of winning the widow(er) lottery.
If their young sucker of a spouse returns with PTSD or a brain injury, that has the potential to screw up their lifestyle, particularly if a discharge seems likely. The best play would likely be emotional abuse to encourage suicide. I have known enough people with military backgrounds to know that many of them had unfaithful or benefits-mercenary spouses. One even remarried to a non-American and intentionally kept her away from the on-base culture, because he could no longer trust anyone who was too familiar with the system. More than one explicitly mentioned that they intentionally avoided marriage for at least the first five years of their service, to weed out anyone trying to become a 20/20/20 spouse.
So even if that high school sweetheart doesn't last, at least they might have loved their partner for a while before they came home changed and wore down their endurance. A benefits-mercenary spouse may actually be angry that their partner survived their injuries.
I am not certain exactly how prevalent this behavior is, as there may be some selection bias in play. Maybe ex-military folks just particularly like to brood over their failed marriages, calculate illusory motives, and then complain about their evil exes to anyone who will listen.
I'm not sure why you were downvoted, but this is one of the life dangers that servicemen face. Worse yet, the military unwittingly subsidizes this kind of thing--lots of servicemen will marry just about anyone to get out of the barracks and to collect the extra housing allowance.
Speaking from personal experience, people aged 18-25 don't always make the wisest decisions, with due consideration for the potential consequences. The military may actually be doing it wittingly. A spouse that only receives continuing benefits if their partner remains in the service will probably be in the military's corner whenever re-enlistment comes up.
Interestingly enough, despite the topic of ex-spouses lagging slightly behind football, barracks stories, barbecue-related food, and generalized complaining about the government among the vets that I have known, not a single one of them has ever been in a position to do anything about it, regardless of their rank or tenure. It seems to be an unintended consequence of a much larger problem, one that is politically untouchable.
I think it is entirely unsolvable as long as any cultural continuity exists within the institution, much like the problem of corruption in some law enforcement units. Too many people have too much at stake in the status quo.
Another unintended consequence that may lead to suicide is that the provision of veterans' medical benefits has become much more expensive, particularly with respect to head injuries. So injured veterans that should be receiving medical discharges for service-related injuries (along with those promised lifetime treatment benefits) are being discharged for other reasons, and their service records falsified. PTSD patients may be denied benefits under the rationale that their PTSD symptoms are actually from a previously concealed psychological condition. If the vet has a brain injury, but no pieces obviously missing, they may be informally classified as malingerers, to be treated accordingly.
It is often left to the person with a severe concussion to navigate a tangled web of bureaucracy on their own, to prove that they are not faking their injury--a task that could probably only be successfully negotiated by someone who was actually faking it. That's somewhat of a catch-22.
So when the organization that formerly saw to your every need suddenly decides to turn on you in your moment of weakness, I can see how that might generate a few bad thoughts--perhaps even suicidal impulses.
Agree. Motorcycle accidents (another major cause of death for members of the armed forces) are likely completely unrelated from war. I find it implausible that suicides are not correlated with the wars. To say that suicides have topped violent deaths in war is a way of saying that method of causality has changed, but it doesn't mean that the cost of war has faded.
Despite how bad this seems, it's a good thing that barely anyone is dying from war. Even adding up the highest possible estimates, we're doing a hell of a lot better than the 20th century was.
Indeed, the casualties should not be measured in terms of nationality. A death is "the end".. bye bye.. sayonara.. all the politics, culture, social.. etc doesn't matter once death arrives.
May the Almighty be with us all, and help us stop casualties everywhere, no matter the cause.
It is another example of the new form war takes when it comes to casualties: highly asymmetric. It has recently been in the news, thus on my mind. No other reason I bring it up.
Civilians have always faired poorly in wars, ancient, modern or recent. Rome killed everyone in Carthage and salted the earth. The Mongols sacked Damascus killing everyone, then returning a week later to kill those who had escaped and returned. When the Soviets invaded Germany at the end of WWII 1.4 million women are estimated to have been raped, many dozens of times. Estimates of deaths resulting from rape reach 250,000.
We have seen somewhat of an erosion in the Geneva conventions, which did do something to curtail civilian harm.
The erosion of Geneva convention standards is partly due to a reaction to them. The effectiveness of asymmetric warfare is partly caused by a strategic use of "rules of war" by the weaker belligerent. Basically bringing the war into the civilian sphere restrains the stronger belligerent. Hamas can't fight an open battle against Israel and Iraqi paramilitaries could not fight that way against the US. This forces the stronger belligerent to either forfeit their advantage by using small arms in urban settings and accept soldier casualty rates, shell urban area causing civilian casualties or allow a status quo.
This strategy is completely ineffective against ISIS, for example because they are not restrained by these rules of war.
Rules of war evolve and erode partly with these dynamics. The Geneva conventions are just a modern version this institution and probably somewhere in the middle in terms of effectiveness.
The bloody status quo in Gaza is grafted on to modern rules of war. Israel cannot "win" by applying its full force to subdue or even depopulate Gaza in the way warfare has often been conducted in the past. Gazans cannot fight in the open.
Wars are a bloody affair. The idea that wars should be fought honorably between warriors and leave civilians in peace is not new. Civilians have usually suffered in wars nonetheless. We have never had any kind of deliberate attempt to stop that succeed. We have succeeded in minimizing wars though. The number of casualties from violence is in steep decline. The post WWII period is the least violent in perhaps all of human history.
Chinese Govt vs Bai Lang (White Wolf) Rebels 1914 - 1914 5,000
2nd Balkan War 1913 - 1913 60,500
Kuomintang vs Chinese Army 1913 - 1913 5,000
Moro Rebellion 1913 - 1913 15,050
1st Balkan War 1912 - 1913 82,000 [1]
Paraguay Coups 1911 - 1912 5,000
Italo-Turkish War 1911 - 1912 20,000
First Sino-Tibetan War 1911 - 1912 2,000
Cuba vs Partido Independiente de Color 1911 - 1911 1,050
Chinese Revolution 1911 - 1911 1,000 [2]
Asir-Yemen Revolt 1910 - 1911 9,000
French Conquest of Wadai Sultanate 1909 - 1911 12,000
The second Rif War 1909 - 1910 10,000
Portugese war against Dembos 1907 - 1910 5,100
Ma al-’Aynayn’s Anti-Colonial Insurgency 1907 - 1910 3,150
Korean guerilla war against Japanese occupation 1907 - 1910 17,736
Iranian Constitution War 1908 - 1909 1,100
Morocco unrest 1907 - 1908 1,400
Romanian Peasant Revolt 1907 - 1907 2,000
4th Central American war 1907 - 1907 1,000
Dutch-Achinese War 1904 - 1907 24,200
Sokoto and UK vs Mahdist Revolt 1906 - 1906 2,080
Zulu Rebellion 1906 - 1906 2,356
Third Central American war 1906 - 1906 1,000
Russian Revolution 1905 1905 - 1906 1,500
Maji Maji revolt 1905 - 1906 8,840
Russo-Japanese war 1904 - 1905 151,831 [1]
Southwest African Revolt 1904 - 1905 12,800 [1]
Uruguay Civil War 1904 - 1904 1,000
Second Yemen Rebellion 1904 - 1904 30,000
Uprisings in Colonial Angola 1902 - 1904 2,000
Ilinden Uprising 1903 - 1903 6,330
The War of a Thousand Days 1899 - 1903 100,000
Philippine insurrection 1899 - 1902 20,500
Second Boer war 1899 - 1902 30,800
The Boxer Rebellion 1900 - 1900 3,003
Sino-Russian War 1900 - 1900 4,000
EDIT: I'm on mobile. Sorry for the awful formating.
Casualties/war/violence did not start with the arrival of the Dutch as you are implying. Casualties/war/violence is part of human nature. For example there is clear evidence that the Bantus violently drove the Khoisan out of much of South Africa some 4000 years ago.
The long term trend is however that South Africa (and the rest of the world) is become less violent and more humane. For example slavery was abolished here in 1834.
Now we're in the 21st century. The 20th included two major world wars, as well as numerous smaller conflicts, including all the wars of colonial independence.
Pretty sure that "right about now" meant "about as far through the 20th century as we are currently through the 21st", i.e. December 1914, about 5 months into WW1.
See, I was poor. I had done very well on standardized tests and received a full-ride scholarship with a stipend, but then I failed out of college, probably due to depression... So there I was without a lot of prospects in front of me, and I chose that moment to start drinking, for the first time. 2003 went by in a blur.
I woke up one day and realized that here I was in a small town in Arkansas, working in some approximation of a box factory which paid just enough for rent and nothing more, never anything more. I knew that I must alter my path dramatically.
So, I walked in to the only place in the world where I knew I'd get hired on the spot.
To their credit, they did make a man of me. That was what I wanted. To be changed. You know, discipline and all that.
(It wore off after a little while, and I can't say honestly that I don't miss it.)
Back to my point: young white American men that enlist in the military aren't a random selection of young white American men.
A strong majority of the members of that demographic in my Flight who I spoke with about why they joined had similar stories: the military is widely known as an option, and for many, it's the second to last option.