Speech: "Veteran Suicide" delivered Veteran's Day 2014

(Thesis)

The Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. government are beginning to pass legislation to combat the mental health issues surround veterans, but the stigma surrounding it still remains strong in society, increasing the amount of suicides by America’s veterans. Further legislation is needed, but more importantly, awareness campaigns and public support are needed to promote stronger resources and battle the war on suicide.

********************************************************************************

In the next 65 minutes a veteran or active duty service member will commit suicide. Someone’s father or mother, someone’s brother or sister, someone’s son or daughter – they will give up hope.

Think about the math for a second – every 65 minutes. That means that every day, 22 former warriors are lost to suicide, according to a study conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs (2013).

As a veteran, soldier, and a leader of other men and women who have answered the call, I have witnessed this growing epidemic firsthand, and I have personally lost two fellow veterans to suicide.

I am here to tell you it does not have to be this way.

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand why it is a problem, and what factors lead our heroes to give up hope.

According to Brian Kinsella, veteran and founder of the organization, STOP SOLDIER SUICIDE, suicide among veterans was not even tracked by our government as an issue until 2009, the first year when the number of veterans and active-duty service members lost to suicide was greater than the annual number of men and women lost to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined (2013).

If our government was not made aware of this epidemic until the last five years, how could we as a society know about the problem? We have been left unaware and unprepared.

For example, 88% of you all (to class) felt that the mental health of our veterans was an important issue, but almost 71% had average to no knowledge of what was being done to combat the issue (Audience Analysis, 2014).

Hand-in-hand with the lack of awareness on this issue has been the underlying societal stigma in America when it comes to mental illness, and more specifically the negative perceptions of returning service members who battle Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, or anxiety issues (Schleifer, 2013).

Simply put, we have been historically trained as soldiers to compartmentalize our feelings in order to complete the mission first.

But now men and women are coming home from war and leaving the military with this emotional baggage, some struggling to find jobs or maintain relationships with others, struggling to reintegrate into a society that has perceived mental illness in a negative light until very recently.

Wes Moore, a veteran of Iraq, summarized this strained relationship with America that veterans come home to in a TED Talks speech, when he said: “All we hear is ‘Thank you for your service and welcome home,’ but no one asks how we are or if we need help” (Moore, 2014).

A study of veterans in New York, conducted by the RAND corporation and a national veterans nonprofit, found that 14% of veterans surveyed felt their families and friends would think less of them for seeking mental health treatment, and 56% were worried they would lose their current jobs in the military if they admitted to depression PTSD, or suicidal thoughts (Schleifer, 2013).

Our service members are afraid to admit they need help, and they are coming home to a society that largely is not aware that there is a problem. We must change this, or we will continue to lose the war on suicide. The good news is we can change this, and it begins right here, with you. So, what can we do?

First off, we must continue to pressure our government to pass further legislation, such as the Veteran Reform Bill passed this August that will create more resources for the VA to address the physical and mental problems veterans return with.

Yet, there has not been a specific bill tailored to preventing suicide until the Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, or SAV (US Congress, 2014), which will force the military to look at the way it handles the transition process for its service members. This bill has yet to be passed. It needs a voice.

While I concede that President Obama has recognized the problem of veteran suicide, current legislation is reactive and not proactive. It is more about resources and not awareness.

Secondly, we need to create and support awareness campaigns that specifically focus on fighting the stigma of mental illness and the epidemic of veteran suicides. The good news is we don’t have to start from scratch. There are groups out there.

Organizations like SSS, Mission 22, FRAGO, and others are out there. They just need your support.

The real solution, the vehicle for change that will bring about this legislation – is you.

Brian Kinsella said it best: “We must generate awareness and outreach to change the way soldiers and veterans think about mental healthcare and the stigma of receiving treatment. In this country, we need a paradigm shift in the way we think about suicide, treatment, and mental healthcare” (2013).

Generating this awareness and changing the stigma does not necessarily require a lot of your time and money.

For example, Mission 22’s main awareness tactic right now is to generate a widespread following on its social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, having people use the hashtag 22.

Imagine if we could get Americans behind this issue like we did with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. We raised money and expanded our knowledge on the issue all from our homes.

Through these awareness and support efforts of the American community, we can create further legislation that improves mental health care and transition programs for veterans and save lives. We can get proactive and attack the problem before it becomes one.

We need to rid our society of this stigma that hurting inside and needing help is a weakness. Once the stigma is gone, these men and women who bravely answered the call to serve our country will feel strong enough to answer the call for healing and help.

We need you to go beyond “Thank you for your service.” Ask us about who we are, what we want, what we need.

Less than 1% of all Americans serve in the military right now (Eikenberry, 2013).

They are coming home scared to talk about their problems, scared to connect to a society they feel doesn’t understand. Every day 22 of those men and women lose hope.

They leave one battle only to come home to another one – the battle to reconnect –the battle to seek help – the battle to cope with the things they saw in some of the worst places on the planet.

We need you – the 99% - to fight this battle at home with us.

Endnotes

Baxter, Chris (Interviewer) & COMM 2381 class (Interviewee). (2014). Audience

Analysis: Topic Oriented Attitude Survey.

Department of Veterans Affairs Mental Health Services Suicide Prevention Program.

(2012). Suicide data report. Retrieved Oct. 28, 2014, from http://www.va.gov/opa/

docs/suicide-data-report-2012-final.pdf

Eikenberry, K. (2013, May 26). Americans and their military, drifting apart. NY

Times. Retrieved Oct. 29, 2014 from http://www.nytimes.com

Kinsella, B. and Perea-Henz, R. (2013, Sep. 24). A solution to a growing military

suicide problem. Huffington Post. Retrieved Oct. 30, 2014 from

http://www.huffingtonpost.com