And numerous readers sent me this, which is even more aggressive in its skepticism.

Danger Room links to a CBS story on an allegedly disproportional number of suicides by veterans. Supporting an anecdotal piece on veterans of the current war, CBS pulls up statistics showing that veterans committed suicide at twice the rate of the average population.
Shock! Horror!
No.
In the US, male veterans outnumber female veterans 13:1. Since four times as many males as women commit suicide in the general population, you’d expect the rate among veterans to be close to the rate among males – 17.6/100,000 per year in 2002 – and indeed it is, if the CBS raw numbers are correct.
CBS also makes an issue of the fact that suicide rates among younger veterans exceed that of the general population by an even bigger margin – but again, that’s what you’d expect, because in that age group, the male-to-female imbalance in suicide rates is greatest, almost six to one.
Suicide is tragedy. What it does not seem to be, among veterans, is an epidemic.