Michael Fumento is deeply skeptical in today’s NY Post. I think he scores some fine points, except for here:

But the most devastating evidence of the network’s nefariousness lies in out- side studies, both individually and combined. For example, CBS put special emphasis on vets of the current wars. “One age group stood out,” it said: “veterans age 20 through 24, those who have served during the War on Terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age.” CBS said the suicide rate of these young vets was 22.9 to 31.9 per 100,000 people. Which looks very strange next to the data on active-duty soldiers in the War on Terror. Last month, the Army released a report finding that the suicide rate among these GIs in 2006 was 17.3 per 100,000 troops – rather lower than CBS’s rate for veterans. Why would soldiers who were recently on active duty be killing themselves at a much higher rate than those still serving?

Me: Putting aside the math, isn’t that an unsurprising finding? Isn’t the whole point of this story that vets suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or some such? They can’t adjust to civilian life? Again, I’m skeptical of the extent of the study’s findings (and Fumento’s point, made later in the piece, that there were no spikes after Gulf War I or Vietnam is alone good cause for skepticism), but the idea that people would be committing suicide more after the conflict than when in the thick of it makes intuitive sense to me.