In the Iraq war and the Aghanistan war some 80,000 military personell commited suicide due to depression. — christian2017

I didn't believe this, so I looked it up and got this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_veteran_suicide):

"According to the most recent report published by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2016, which analyzed 55 million veterans' records from 1979 to 2014, the current analysis indicates that an average of 20 veterans a day die from suicide." (My italics.)

Thirty-five years, 7,000+ suicides per year, Call it a quarter of a million deaths.

Online I find that in 2017 there were reported just under 47,200 suicides. The rate is around fourteen per hundred thousand per year, a number slowly trending upwards from about ten, over about twenty years.

This site for some statistics on US battlefield deaths and casualties:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war

Including Viet Nam through current, about 65,000 deaths.

I do not know statistics well enough to draw out of this data a complete picture, but it's all very suggestive.

Anyway, I knew none of this. I thank the OP for posting. Maybe we all ought to give this some attention, at the very least to be aware of it.

My question is this: Should such a large part of the economy really rely on military technology production and maintenance. — christian2017

No.

The military doesn't submit bids for products from reluctant manufacturers. Companies are anxious to participate in military production because it has traditionally been quite profitable. And the manufacturers are not silent partners. Building the technological capacity for modern war is a very cooperative effort between the military and industry.

The logic of having weapons, and getting paid to make more weapons, is a strong inducement to eventually use those weapons on an old or new enemy. Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were / are our new-enemy wars. Other countries have done the same thing elsewhere. A tremendous amount of product was used in these three wars, to no particular good effect. In a way, results don't matter. The important thing is to drop the bombs, launch the missiles, fire the bullets, etc.

There is a revolving door relationship among corporations, the military, and lobbyists. The result is more spending on arms.

I'm not claiming that our military is useless or harmful to the US (that's another argument altogether). What are harmful are the vested interests of arms manufacturing corporations steering national policy. This is largely (but not entirely) a post WW-II phenomena.

Try looking at the number of US veterans compared to suicide rate and then compare the number of police officers to suicide rate.

To give you some idea of the figures here we’re talking about 20,000,000 veterans and around 600,000 police officers. 47,200 of vets in 2017 committed suicide and about 165 police officers.

The problem with looking at specific statistics without comparing to other areas or mentioning the the mean is that our perspectives can be skewed and then our opinions shifted.

The bottom line is. Be wary of the stats and whether or not they say what you think they mean, who is presenting them and to what end, and how capable you’re of analysing the data properly (note: humans are particularly bad at this task as we’re generally not very well equipped to deal with such problems in evolutionary terms).

My question is this: Should such a large part of the economy really rely on military technology production and maintenance. — christian2017

The US can live with a huge military industrial complex easily. It is not detrimental like it was to the Soviet Union: people aren't poor in the US because of the military industrial complex. Also it should be noted that at least earlier a lot of innovations came from the military-industrial complex that have benefited the peace time society.

Does it make sense to spend so much money to protect our soldiers from the enemies weapons when i would argue its our own society that has indirectly led to their death? Thoughts and opinions. — christian2017

This reasoning is a bit confusing. Why wouldn't you give the best medical treatment when you are able to give it in wartime? First and foremost, one has to notice the huge leaps that military medical treatment has gone through and that the US enjoys air superiority in all it's wars (which enables quick MEDEVAC by helicopter). Just look at the statistics of soldiers wounded in the Iraq war compared to the fallen, for example. The death toll would be multiple times higher if the war had been fought in the 1940's.

And suicides? As this is about veterans, the question of more about present day society than the military.

The US can live with a huge military industrial complex easily. It is not detrimental like it was to the Soviet Union: people aren't poor in the US because of the military industrial complex. Also it should be noted that at least earlier a lot of innovations came from the military-industrial complex that have benefited the peace time society. — ssu

without going into further detail which i would not like to do on a forum such as this out in the open: i would have to say with the given information you might be right. If you would like my personal take on this i can send you a private message.

"This reasoning is a bit confusing. Why wouldn't you give the best medical treatment when you are able to give it in wartime? First and foremost, one has to notice the huge leaps that military medical treatment has gone through and that the US enjoys air superiority in all it's wars (which enables quick MEDEVAC by helicopter). Just look at the statistics of soldiers wounded in the Iraq war compared to the fallen, for example. The death toll would be multiple times higher if the war had been fought in the 1940's.

And suicides? As this is about veterans, the question of more about present day society than the military. "

I had a response to this but i felt it was inappropriate to say out in the open regarding this issue. I you would like my take on this issue i can send you a private message.

i agree

The two are linked because of the petrodollar.