In war, killing is down; suicide is up

For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congress.org.

The reasons are complicated and the accounting uncertain, according to the website — for instance, should returning soldiers who take their own lives after being mustered out be included?

But the suicide rate is a further indication of the stress that military personnel live under after nearly a decade of war, the website states.

Figures released by the armed services last week showed an alarming increase in suicides in 2010, but those figures leave out some categories, the website says.

Overall, the services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty personnel reported in 2009, the website says.

The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat, excluding accidents and illness. In 2009, active-duty suicides exceeded deaths in battle, the website says.

Darren DeGraw, Manville and PTSD

Sometimes post-traumatic-stress disorder can take years to manifest itself. For Darren DeGraw, my Point Pleasant Boro High classmate from 1985, it took 11.

Darren was 39 when he died in 2006 in Lake Worth, Fla., of possible heart failure, according to The Princeton Packet. But what happened in 1995, shortly after joining the Manville, N.J. police force, may have been what ultimately did him in.

Darren, who had also lived in Barnegat, resigned on June 30, 2005 from the Manville force because of the PTSD he suffered from following a 1995 shooting, his ex-wife, Donna DeGraw, once told The Princeton Packet.

Even as he suffered, he apparently showed the same leadership spirit he had as a high school student, hoping to revive a community that had a wrecked economy and a population that suffered from a debilitating and deadly illness.

But there is only so much a person can do to save themselves, especially when they face the tragedy of depression and trauma that not only affects those around them. Mental illness is often a force bigger than ourselves. For Darren, it was a force that - despite the good life he led - was too big to conquer.

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