PBS drops ball on latest military suicide reporting

To say I am very disappointed in PBS with this doesn't even come close to all of the belligerent words flooding my head right now.

This interview started talking about Green on Blue attacks then went straight into military suicides. What were they trying to prove? They didn't even have anything new or helpful to say. Usually PBS is great covering Combat and PTSD but this was terrible.

Number of U.S. Soldier Suicides Spike Even as Deployment Declines
PBS
Aug. 17, 2012

JEFFREY BROWN: We have got a chart I want to put up here that shows the increase.

And this is Army suicide. But this is interesting because as you are saying, it's going up and up and up, but even as the pace of deployments is going down, right, and after Iraq is over and as the drawdown in Afghanistan continues.

MARK THOMPSON: Yes, I mean, mental health problems in the military and elsewhere -- you know, going to combat is like a seed.

It's planted. It doesn't sprout. It sprouts somewhere, you know, in the next rainy season, and whether that's six months or three years remains to be seen. But, generally, the impact of, you know, traumatic brain injury, of PTSD actually has to ripen. And it doesn't happen quickly.

JEFFREY BROWN: And of course the military has accepted this as a major problem. They talk about it a lot. They have implemented various programs. So what is the problem? I mean, are they not working or is this still an access problem, or are they not the solution?

MARK THOMPSON: No, there is an access problem and it remains a stigma problem, although those are going down.

But just like with the green-on-blue killings, Jeff, there are a lot of factors that play into both of these. Consequently, if you fix one, there are seven others. So there's no sort of one-size-fits-all solution. And that in part is why both are so vexing.
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