Suicide hot line got calls from 22,000 veterans

WASHINGTON – More than 22,000 veterans have sought help from a special suicide hot line in its first year, and 1,221 suicides have been averted, the government says.

According to a recent RAND Corp. study, roughly one in five soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan displays symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, putting them at a higher risk for suicide. Researchers at Portland State University found that male veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide than men who are not veterans.

This month, a former Army medic, Joseph Dwyer, who was shown in a Military Times photograph running through a battle zone carrying an Iraqi boy, died of an accidental overdose after struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder for almost five years.

Janet Kemp, national suicide prevention coordinator for the Veterans Affairs Department, said the hot line is in place to help prevent deaths such as Dwyer’s. “We just want them to know there’s other options and people do care about them, and we can help them make a difference in their lives,” she said in an interview.

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Geoge Lucus On Latest Indiana Jones

Really, though, it was a challenge getting the story together and getting everybody to agree on it. Indiana Jones only becomes complicated when you have another two people saying ‘I want it this way’ and ‘I want it that way’, whereas, when I first did Jones, I just said, ‘We’ll do it this way’ — and that was much easier. But now I have to accommodate everybody, because they are all big, successful guys, too, so it’s a little hard on a practical level.

“If I can come up with another idea that they like, we’ll do another. Really, with the last one, Steven wasn’t that enthusiastic. I was trying to persuade him. But now Steve is more amenable to doing another one. Yet we still have the issues about the direction we’d like to take. I’m in the future; Steven’s in the past. He’s trying to drag it back to the way they were, I’m trying to push it to a whole different place. So, still we have a sort of tension. This recent one came out of that. It’s kind of a hybrid of our own two ideas, so we’ll see where we are able to take the next one.”

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Bag of Randomness

  • I think the first time I ever heard the word “chipotle” was about seven years ago, now I hear it about 10 times a day.
  • So far I’m not impressed with the new latest and greatest search engine that’s suppose to rival The Google.  Let’s just say when I did a search for my last name that I wasn’t impressed.  Heck, whenever I searched “bag of nothing” or “bag of nothing” I can’t even find my website.
  • Bobby Flay’s third and current wife is from Dallas, and her favorite meal is biscuits and gravy.
  • Last Dallas officer on duty when JFK shot retires – I think the most interesting part of this article is that he worked the night shift and slept during the day, so when he woke up he found that Kennedy was shot dead in his city and LBJ was president.
  • I think my custom made arch supports are helping.  However, when I ordered them I had the choice of choosing what type of surface, and for some reason I chose leather because I thought it would hold up longer.  However, I’m finding out that when I work out the leather causes friction and I’m getting some blisters on my feet.
  • One of the best things I like about training camp is to follow a few players that are “on the bubble.”
  • The presidential election is less than 100 days away – at least that’s what someone on the radio said.  I didn’t do the math, but that sounds about right.
  • A tiny and abbreviated Super Mario Bros game.
  • Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Trailer
  • SisterGeeding is in Cincinnati on her way to NYC and wanted to drive by the house our father grew up in.  I took a quick look using Google Street View and it appears the house was torn down and replaced with a gas station.  She’s going to confirm that.  I didn’t expect for it to still be there considering my father was born in 1923 (that’s not a typo).  However, his high school is still up and running.  I’ve always wanted to visit Cincinnati as sort of a pilgrimage to my father’s past – he had a lot of good stories about that city.
  • Weird dream.  Tony Romo suffered a severe injury during training camp and Jerry signed Brett Farve.
  • I wonder if Batman has a TollTag on the Batmobile.
  • I heard that Boys II Men will be performing at the ‘local’ casino in Oklahoma.  How the mighty have fallen.  But I also see Huey Lewis, Kenny Loggins, and Frank Caliendo (his Madden impression now gives me tired-head) will also be playing and I might just decided to check one of them out.  Link
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