Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans

NEW YORK, Nov. 13, 2007

(CBS) They are the casualties of wars you don’t often hear about – soldiers who die of self-inflicted wounds. Little is known about the true scope of suicides among those who have served in the military.

But a five-month CBS News investigation discovered data that shows a startling rate of suicide, what some call a hidden epidemic, Chief Investigative Reporter Armen Keteyian reports exclusively.

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Post-War Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths, U.S. Says

By Avram Goldstein

May 5 (Bloomberg) — The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government’s top psychiatric researcher said.

Community mental health centers, hobbled by financial limits, haven’t provided enough scientifically sound care, especially in rural areas, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He briefed reporters today at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in Washington.

Steve-O returns to “mental institution”

Monday July 7, 2008

Steve-O arrives at Maxim’s 2008 Hot 100 Party on May 21, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.
Charley Gallay/Getty Images

Steve-O is back in the hospital, he reveals on his blog.

“I’ve now been clean for 115 days, and I’m, again, in a mental institution,” the Jackass star, 33, writes. “I did so much cocaine, ketamine, pcp, nitrous oxide, and all sorts of other drugs, that, quite simply, my brain is f—-d up.”

He adds that though his “cognitive skills are alright … I frequently suffer from horrible mood swings and severe depression.”

Steve-O (who was hospitalized at a mental health unit of L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in March) writes that the “medication that is prescribed to me doesn’t do the trick every day. I’m back in the looney bin trying to get that s—t right.

“The bottom line is that doing drugs f—-d my a– up, and I’m going to be paying for it for a long time, probably for the rest of my life,” he says. “Everyone’s going to make their own decisions in life, but nobody needs to make the same mistakes I made.”

Steve-O pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession
in June and was ordered to attend rehab for two years.

The plea was part of a deal that will keep the Jackass star out of jail.

Military suicides

Military suicide rate

The number of Army suicides increased again last year, amid the most violent year yet in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.