Suicide

The Killer…of a Military Suicide Victim

The military’s suicide woes are profound enough without a sailor adding to them. Yet that’s just what Petty Office 2nd Class Paul Bricker did. He helped a superior, Chief Petty Office Gerard Curran, kill himself. Their goal: …

Military Tick-Tock

Reconstructing how, and perhaps why, something happened is one of the most rewarding kinds of reporting. It’s called a tick-tock in the trade. Nancy Gibbs and I do it in this week’s Time, retracing the lives and military careers of Army captains Michael McCaddon and Ian Morrison to try and shine a light on what drives soldiers to …

Suicide’s Twin Challenges

It has been a tough couple of months, burrowing into the challenge of military suicides…and repeatedly coming up empty-handed. My editors seemed like Pete Chiarelli when he became the Army’s No. 2 officer nearly five years ago: determined to find a way to halt suicide in the ranks, and frustrated when it proved to be so elusive. It …

Honor, Stigma…and PTSD

I’m an old guy from the Vietnam era, a psychiatrist who studied violence in the 1960s, who treated survivors of trauma in the ’70s and who helped create and nurture the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder through the …

Update: The 7,000 Mile Sniper Shot.

I wrote a few weeks ago about Marine Major Jeff Hackett, who killed himself in the aftermath of a collapse following his distinguished 26-year career. Major Hackett’s widow, Danielle was initially denied payment of Jeff’s $400,000 life insurance policy because when times got tough economically for Jeff, he missed a few payments. …

Psychiatrists Pondering PTSD in Philadelphia

Next week is the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia, the largest yearly gathering of its kind. It’s exciting because of the prominence military matters are going to get. Last year there were perhaps 15 military-related sessions at the meeting in Hawaii. This year, there’s going to be twice as many …

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