People might go on rampages for reasons other than mental illness, experts say. “People can be very angry, for example, and do bad things,“ said Dr. Joel J. Silverman, chairman of the psychiatry department at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. “Don’t assume this is mental illness.“ Police say Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opened fire at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, killing 13 and wounding at least 30 others.

All 690 workers at the state mental-health hospital in Staunton have been warned of potential layoffs as a result of Virginia’s budget squeeze. Employees at Western State Hospital received a memo from the facility’s director, Dr. Jack Barber, advising that during previous rounds of state cuts, administrators had slashed spending “without laying off anyone who did not apply to go. This is our aim with this round as well.“

In his budget forecast on Aug. 19, Gov. Tim Kaine emphasized his efforts to minimize borrowing our way through the recession and Virginia’s current budget crisis. He argued admirably that our state should avoid passing along debt to future generations. Although these sentiments are well-placed, we must also remember that outright cash debt is just one aspect of fiscal responsibility. Instead of bonds and interest payments, Virginia faces the looming possibility of massive “social debt.“

Victims of traumatic events sometimes get so hung up thinking about what happened to them that they can’t let go of their torment. Rigid, “black-and-white kinds of thoughts” play over and over in their minds and keep them from moving forward in life, says University of Richmond researcher Kristen P. Lindgren. “Those kinds of thoughts can keep people stuck in their lives,“ she said.

Henrico County and Richmond will benefit from grants announced yesterday directed at training police officers to better handle mentally ill patients. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said the grants will benefit both officers and mentally ill members of the public in confrontational situations that too often result in injuries and unnecessary criminal arrests.

Too often in Virginia, the criminal-justice system and mental-health professionals seem to occupy two ships passing in the night. This can have tragic consequences, as we saw on April 16, 2007, when a mentally ill Seung-Hui Cho shot 32 people to death at Virginia Tech. On other occasions, the lack of seamless coordination and proper training can imperil both lawenforcement professionals and the person in the throes of a mental-health crisis.

Sport sometimes enters a soldier’s day without being invited. Such an episode occurred when Army Captain Brett Prillaman strolled into the mess facility at his base in Baghdad, Iraq, last December. “All they have open at that time of day”—between lunch and dinner—“is a sandwich bar,“ he said. “And you have to get the sandwich ‘to go.‘ I decided to sit down at a shaded picnic table to eat my lunch. Two other soldiers were sitting there eating, and there was a third lunch there, unattended. Both soldiers were grinning as I sat down and started to eat. I asked them what they were grinning about. They both said that in about two minutes, I’d find out.“

The shooting death of a mentally ill Chesterfield County man Saturday seems to have precisely fit the pattern of cases scores of law-enforcement officers in Virginia are being trained to avoid. Chesterfield police declined to comment yesterday on specific details of the case or on issues relating to officer training. But a key mental-health advocate said yesterday that the shooting appears to match what law-enforcement agents across Virginia are being specially trained to handle.

Fun and games? That depends upon who’s playing. And where. And when. Sports played by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan sometimes test not only the athletic ability but also the toughness and tolerance of those who participate. “There are some very competitive guys” serving in Iraq, said Army Capt. Brett Prillaman, an alumnus of Midlothian High School and Virginia Military Institute. “Anytime you get together with a bunch of young, competitive soldiers who are trying to vent some combat stress, it can get pretty rough.“

Attended: Goochland High School, VMI
  Service branch: Army (captain)
  Served in: Iraq
  Currently: Reassigned last summer to the Virginia National Guard. Works with the State Corporation Commission’s Division of Utility and Railroad Safety.
  When duty no longer calls: Angle intends to maintain his level of fitness by riding his road and mountain bikes and by visiting the gym on his schedule, not Uncle Sam’s. During his 15 months in Iraq, he said, “those of us who were constantly going out on missions had a harder time utilizing the available (athletic and conditioning) assets.“

Squeezing off a shot. Throwing a grenade. Digging in to defend the perimeter. U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan frequently perform these acts—but off the battlefield. Competitive sports offer a wel come escape and a valuable training tool for troops in a war zone. Athletics provide relief from the grim reality or, at times, crushing boredom of daily duties, and they even can break down cultural barriers.

Super Bowl XLIII ended a bit before 10 p.m. on the eastern seaboard of the United States. In Baghdad, Iraq, it was before 6 a.m. The clock in Kabul, Afghanistan had to read 7:30 a.m. All of which illustrates a minor but very real inconvenience for U.S. troops serving in those areas: Even in this age of blogs and bytes, real-time scores are not always easy to obtain.

Nationally, suicide experts say it’s impossible to know whether more people are contemplating suicide because of the economic downturn. However, past trends suggest that during times of high unemployment, more people do kill themselves. According to the American Association of Suicidology, the U.S. suicide rate peaked at 17.4 suicides per 100,000 population in 1933. That year, 25 percent of the labor force was unemployed.

Michelle Mason sold her home before the real estate market went bust and got a year’s severance pay when she was laid off from her job as communications director at Capital One.

Virginia’s mental health care system is doing a little better than it had been and is slightly better than the national average, according to a new report by the National Alliance on Mental Illness.