Portland State Magazine Fall 2007

MAN DY MARTIN still feels the "cockroaches" in her stomach-the sweat, the panic-of the day her world fell apart. Martin, a sergeant in the U.S. Army reserves, raced north from Kuwait with ocher coalition forces in 2003 and served 14 months in a town just 75 miles north of Baghdad. Marcin was on a crew chat maintained Chinook heHcopcers. She came home to Porcland in 2004. Months later, Marrin found she couldn't leave the war behind. She was experiencing nightmares, feeHng hyper– vigilant, and drinking heavily. Marcin sought counseling. But as the hour of her appointment approached, she scarred sweating. Then crying. Then crying harder. Wave after wave of panic swept over her. "I was our of control," she remembers. Ultimately, Marrin was lucky. With counseling, she has reclaimed her life. Many who have served in the nation's military-overwhelmingly men-have not been so fortunate. A GROUNDBREAKING STUDY led by Mark Kaplan, professor in the School of Community Health, has found chat men who served in the military are twice as likely as non-veterans co commie suicide. While Kaplan did not include women in his study because of che small number of women veterans represented in the data, a colleague did extrapolate the information and found that women veterans also are twice as likely as non-veterans co commie suicide. Nonetheless, Kaplan, a nationally recognized authority on the cause and prevention of suicide, was surprised– and troubled-by the study's findings. Published in che July issue of che jour– nal ofEpidemiology and Community Health, the study is the first large-scale look at veteran suicide races. The study compared suicide races for 104,000 men who had served in the military from World War I through the Persian Gulf War with men who had not served in the armed services. The results were clear. "Veteran status is a risk factor for suicide above and beyond a whole hose of (ocher) factors," says Kaplan. The study, funded by the National Institute of Meneal Health, uses data from U.S. National Health Interview Surveys from 1986 co 1994 and national death data from 1986 ro 1997. Even though the earliest surveys are from 1986, men who served in World War I were represented. Kaplan worked on the study with Bentson McFarland, profes– sor of psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University, and PSU faculty members Nathalie Huguet and Jason Newsom. THE STUDY'S FINDINGS conclude that veterans: who are white are at a higher risk of suicide; DON COHEN Don Cohen, 74, a sergeant in t he Korean War, still wakes up sweating from night– mares about his military experience. At times he has felt suicidal, asking himself, "Why did I survive?" To help him answer this and other questions, Cohen has met weekly since 1992 with a VA-sponsored support group. In 2000, he made a lasting contribution to his fellow veterans. He spearheaded the successful effort to build a Korean War Memorial in Wilsonvi lle. Today, he is retired from a successfu l ca reer in sales, including co-owning his own marketing business, and is busier than ever. He and his wife, Mayre Lee, are remodeling a second home, he's chair of an effort to build a Korean War Memorial in Vancouver, Washington, and he acts as a liaison between the Vancouver and Oregon memorial volunteers. "I ' L " ts not ror me, says Cohen of the Korean War Memorial in Wilsonville. "It's for them: the guys who didn't make it. They deserve it." FA LL 2007 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZIN E 13