An old high school friend's father is a nationally renowned expert on suicide (he also happens to be a fantastic author on the subject of flyfishing...see "Darwin's Trout"). The lack of attention paid to young men's mental health is an issue for sure. Let's face it, most of us are simply useless assholes from the time we can first drive until at least 30 (or in the case of Bandl and Flaggy....). As Paul writes, useless assholes can be dangerous assholes.
I've felt for awhile now that we should have some sort of compulsory service at 18 years of age. If not the military, then perhaps "burdening" them with this. We could certainly use the infrastructure.
http://onsuicide.com/2015/10/03/a-littl ... r-thought/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;If you are not “burdened” as a male with a day job, bills to pay, helping a friend put on a new roof – you are, as men often say, “Useless as tits on a boar hog.”
Useless men are dangerous men. Just look at Jihadist recruits.
Consider that 30,000 men die from prostate cancer every year in the US and that the same number kill themselves.
Now consider that from 2007 to 2015 the American Journal of Men’s Health published roughly 4 articles with the word “suicide” in the title, and more than 1,000 with the words “prostate cancer” in the title.
In my parallax view of the world something is wrong with this picture.
If we really want to help young at-risk males feel good about themselves and stop shooting up our communities and themselves, we’re going to have to rethink a) our funding for male suicide research, b) our attitudes toward young men, c) our mental health delivery system, and d) how we are going to get on the ground and do something different to enlist young men and boys into their own development and positive growth.
But most of all, we need to put them to work. We need to burden them with adult male responsibilities. We need to begin – again – a Civilian Conservation Corps.
In the depths of the Great Depression, the CCC put three million unemployed young men at labor doing important work to help build a young country. (If you are not familiar with the CCC see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_ ... tion_Corps" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.)
That same beloved country is falling apart. It is in disrepair. Bridges collapse. Forests need thinning. Blue highways and city streets crumble under our tires. The trails through the mountains those young men built are now tangles of vines and alder brush.
That country needs its young men.
Oh, and I am writing this from a 75-year-old CCC-built supervisor’s log cabin in the mountains of Northern Idaho. The 800 young men who built this place and miles upon miles of nearby roads and trails and tunnels in this forest came from New York, New Jersey, and Arkansas. Everyone a volunteer, they came with a willing heart.
Their stories abound hereabouts and are full of the pride of accomplishment. Travel to a far place. Becoming a part of something bigger than themselves. With ax, shovel, and sweat, they grew into men.
An old timer said to me of his CCC days, “Best time of my life.”
- Spoiler: show
You're a Patriot.
The premise was how to stop shootings, wasn't it?
