US Army PR tweet doesn't quite get the intended result

Last week, the US Army's official Twitter account posted a short video of a young soldier in training (or perhaps recently out of it), explaining that Army life has made him a "better man and warrior". The account then followed up with a tweet asking the public, simply,

Quote:

How has serving impacted you?

What follows is perhaps one of the saddest and most depressing Twitter "threads" I've ever read, as for days literally hundreds of former servicemen and women of varying ages, along with children and family members of veterans, have told stories of injuries, illnesses, alcoholism, domestic violence, rapes, debilitating PTSD, suicides, and a common thread of refusal of help by military and veteran's services. Tales of formerly bright and vibrant young people returning from deployments and rarely leaving their rooms, veterans having to do their grocery shopping at night because they cannot handle crowds, and broken, perpetually-drunk fathers who survived Vietnam and made their children swear while young that they would never join the military, abound.

Needless to say, most definitely not the kinds of comments the tweet was fishing for; and they throw into sharp relief how poorly at least this country looks after the people it asks so much of.

via International Skeptics Forum http://bit.ly/2QCdXnD