"Stunning": CBS News Discovers "Hidden Epidemic" of Military Suicides

Tonight CBS will air the first of a two-part series on the "hidden epidemic" of military suicides, revealing numbers that CBS calls "stunning." The report examines data on the suicide rate amongst veterans once they return home, which indicates a serious mental health issue — and a hidden mortality rate.

"We first started researching military suicides because it had never been done before," said Armen Keteyian, CBS News' chief investigative correspondent in a statement forwarded by CBS News. "But when all the data was collected, we were astonished. I had no idea how much of an epidemic CBS uncovered. We expect this to be a wake up call."

Keteyian previewed the segment on the "CBS Early Show" today, saying that the CBS five-month study found that vets were "more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 as non-vets." Chillingly, though the Veterans Affairs Department estimates that "some 5,000 ex-servicemen and women will commit suicide this year,' that's a lowball estimate. Said Keteyian: "Our numbers are much higher than that, overall."

[Update, 5:30pm: CBS has just released some of those numbers: "At least 120 Americans who served in the U.S. military killed themselves per week in 2005, CBS News learned in a five-month investigation into veteran suicides. That's 6,256 veteran suicides in one year, in 45 states."]

According to a CBS spokesperson, the report represents the first time an actual count of veteran suicides at home has been tallied, as opposed to estimates. "We also have number from the DOD of active duty suicides that we believed have never been reported before dating back to 1995," said the spokesperson. "Many believe, including the family members, that they VA hasn't done a true nationwide count of the numbers (which are stunning) because they just don't want to know." This echoes findings in a CBS report on the matter back in January 2004, which focused on soldier suicides during deployment but which also noted that the Pentagon did not count post-release suicides, and that a pre-Iraq war army study had predicted "an impending soldier-suicide crisis" (which, according to critics, was "largely ignored").

The two-part series will focus tonight on the numbers, and tomorrow on how the Dept. of Veterans Affairs is handling this problem (our guess, based on the above: Not well). According to CBS, tonight's segment runs 5 minutes — long for a newscast (though tonight is a single-sponsor broadcast (Pfizer) which will definitely save a few minutes).

Military suicides have been in the news recently owing to the passage last month of the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act (HR. 327), named for 22-year-old Army Reservist Joshua Omvig who commited suicide a few months after his return from Iraq. The bill "directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to develop and implement a comprehensive program to reduce the incidence of suicide among veterans," by virtue of better screening of veteran patients for mental health, tracking of veterans, better suicide prevention training for VA staff (including designating one suicide-specific counselor at each facility), and a 24-hour mental-health care, including a hotline. The legislation also requires the VA to report back on "status, timeline and costs for complete implementation within 2 years" within 90 days (i.e. by late January). Hopefully they can reverse the trend. If not, hopefully CBS will still be there.

The Veteran Suicide Epidemic [CBS News] (video here)
Vets' Suicide Rate "Stunning" [CBS News]

Related:
Veterans' Suicides: a Hidden Cost of Bush's Wars [Alternet]
Paul Rieckhoff: Suicide: Vets Fight The War Within [HuffPo]
H.R. 5771 [109th]: Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act [GovTrack.us]

Comments

[Desaparecido]

Do you really think all of these deaths are really suicides?

[Blutus]

Is this good Iraq news or bad?

Liberal press conspiracy again?


Will there be flowers soon?

When will be greeted as 'liberators'?

And is Jebus on the way or not?!?

[Unrepentantliberal]

CBS is 'astonished' at the numbers......sadly, the rest of us or not. CBS, better late than never, I suppose.

[dantheman]

Let's support the troops. Not the republican way of supporting with bumper stickers and lapel pins, but by demanding that they receive the care they deserve while serving, and after discharge. What kind of society are we that we ask the troops to sacrifice the most, and then we show them the door and try to forget about them?

[WARisEVIL]

What I find quite disgusting is calling us Veterans 'heros'

We weren't heros in Vietnam, they aren't heros in Iraq.

Both wars of AGGRESSION for the military industrial complex.

I know people like to spin it with FREEDOM, and fighting 'terrorism' or 'communism' etc. but in fact, these wars of aggression actually foster terrorism.

Its amazing people just don't get that.

[longislandlol]

Because- if a war is not worth dying for (this one isn't)- suicides will continue to rise-- God only knows what these men and women witnessed and tried so terribly hard to block out; suicide bombings, people blown up, body parts, all for what?

[sos]

my friend, a former marine, shot herself in the head last year. maybe suicide has always been high among vets, but that does not mean that it is okay. we have better means to catch these issues early, diagnose, and offer help. that should be the goal of any administration. my friend was 23 and left behind a toddler and a bewildered and devastated family.

[MikeDu]

Every major American war - look at the aftermath. Depression and despair abound. Famously troubled times for veterans after the revolutionary war. The civil war's end brought America roaming psychopaths like Jesse James and the KKK. The Spanish American War was as divisive in its day as Vietnam. Post-WWI saw the phrase 'the lost generation'. The shattered young men coming out of WWII formed 'the beat generation'.

All the jingoistic speeches and flag-waving hero-worship won't cure men crushed by knowledge of what horrors they were made to commit. If you supported this pointless war you ar complicit in these men's death.

[WARisEVIL]

Many people believe that Vietnam Vets were spit on when coming back to the USA but in many cases the Veterans (myself included) wanted to spit on the apathetic Americans who refused to speak out against it.

One day you are in a war zone getting shelled nightly and 12 hours later you are back in the USA and notice that noone really gives a shit and are busy with their own lives.

I didn't want to be welcomed as a heroe....what I wanted was for the average Joe to be in the streets protesting. They weren't so I spit on them.

[WARisEVIL]

Most people think PTSD means being depressed but many other symptoms are always loooking for action, compulsive gambling (life or death adrenaline kick), sexaholics (getting bored with partner,always needing new kick), fast driving, drugs etc etc.

[SaviourMachine]

Not surprised CBS(or any of the supposed news channels) is slow on the uptake.

That said I'm glad this story will get out there to the uninformed masses.

Also think about this the next time you see a homeless man who hasn't bathed in weeks,mont­hs,barefoo­t with a blanket wrapped around his disheveled clothes wandering the streets aimlessly,mumbling to himself.

He very well could be a vet who didn't take his life but has no life all the same.

[amanda85]

What if this --or part of this-- were a ruse by the Pentagon and the Bush administration to reduce the number of casualties in Iraq? Claim they committed suicide, so that you can count them out and trumpet to the world that things are going better over there. You think the lying thugs in the White House wouldn't do that?

[kellygrrrl]

Bush doesn't care about vets
he doesn't care about children
he doesn't care about seniors
he doesn't care about the poor
... the middle class
... the sick
... the wounded
... the hungry
... the economy
... the environment
... the Constitution

[IanStuart]

Bush might say they killed themselves here because the terrorists didn't kill them over there.

[Mekarri]

Now this should be at the top of the page not the Hillary planted questions bullshit. Ariana spoke about the media resposibility to the public and yet she have had none stories about Hillary at the top of the page for 2 days. Ariana we get it!!! You don't like Hillary, move on please.