Every Christmas Rudi Gresham, a former combat soldier in Vietnam, gets a Christmas card from a fellow veteran who was nearly pushed to the brink of suicide because of despair.
"The guy was in his late 50s and his wife had left him and he came down with cancer from Agent Orange, he was broke and he had to move in with his mom and dad--he didn't know where to go from there," said Gresham, who was then serving as senior advisor to the Department of Veterans Affairs under the George W. Bush administration.
"Everything had gone to hell," said Gresham. "But I communicated with him."
Now 68 and retired in South Carolina, Gresham was able to get the veteran the 10 years of back pay he deserved by authenticating his service with a commanding officer. Today, the man's cancer is under control and he has a new woman in his life.
Gresham said getting that thank you card for saving the veteran's life was "the gratifying moment" in his eight-year career with the VA. "I tell my kids, this is the reward for my work."
But three other depressed friends were not so lucky and took their own lives, becoming statistics in a rising tide of suicides among baby boomers, many of them Vietnam War veterans.
Just this week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its latest statistics on suicide rates among Americans, finding that the number of middle-aged Americans who took their own lives was up more than 28 percent.
Joe Amon/Denver Post/Getty Images
Vietnam Vet's 2nd Chance at College Football Watch VideoThese statistics reversed a longtime demographic trend for the generation born between 1946 and 1964: The suicide rate for people in this group rose by about 30 percent in the decade ending in 2010. The rate for people over 85, formerly the most likely to kill themselves, dropped by 12 percent, according to the CDC.
Analyzing the National Vital Statistics System for mortality data between 1999 and 2010, the CDC said the annual age-adjusted suicide rate among those aged 35 to 64 was 17.6 percent per 100,000. For people ages 45 to 54, the suicide rate was 19.6 per 100,000 in 2010. For people ages 55 to 64, it was 17.5 per 100,000.
For the whole population, the national rate was 12.4 per 100,000 in that decade, according to the CDC. The most common mechanisms were suffocation or hanging, poisoning and firearms. Increases were seen among both men and women.
The CDC cites the recent economic downturn, a "cohort effect" among baby boomers who had unusually high suicide rates during their adolescent years, and a rise in intentional overdoses because of increased availability of prescription opiods.
But suicide rates among Vietnam veterans are the highest of any particular group, according to John Draper, project director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
Eight million Americans report suicidal thoughts, and 1.1 million will attempt suicide. An estimated 38,000 will succeed in killing themselves, according to the CDC. Most are male, by a four to one margin, and are single and lack a college education.
"Men tend to be more lonely and have a harder time maintaining and replacing relationships than women, especially when they get into middle age," said Draper. "Men are busy working or tie their relationships to work and when they lose their job, they lose their relationships."
Those who are less stable in their personal lives are also less stable in the workforce, he said.
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