Mullen: 18 veterans kill themselves every day in the U.S. | The Raw Story

Mullen: 18 veterans kill themselves every day in the U.S. | The Raw Story:

'via Blog this'President Barack Obama’s former top military adviser’s response was triggered by a question about offering more compensation to soldiers in exchange for their sacrifices, essentially converting the military into a mercenary-style force instead of a volunteer army.

That possibility seemed to disturb Mullen greatly.

“Indicative of [those stresses] is the incredible suicide rate we have on the active side, which is even despite all the efforts of leadership to contain it, is in the army this year higher now than it was a year ago,” he said. “And another statistic that hasn’t gotten much traction is that we’ve got 18 vets a day who are killing themselves in the United States.”

Mullen added that the military has become less present to the American people thanks in part to an all-volunteer force that is paid in salaries and benefits to fight and die on the president’s orders.

“But, I do worry that it’s just, ‘Please go off and fight our wars, we don’t want to be bothered’ — that the whole country isn’t in,” he said. “We’re not there, but at some point we cross the line where, essentially, it’s not unlike mercenary forces from other countries… which may be another option. I think the United States of America, without its military being a direct output of its people’s will, and understanding what that is, is a disaster for us in the long run.”