{"id":145228,"date":"2014-04-14T10:00:35","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T14:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?p=145228"},"modified":"2022-06-09T16:39:36","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T20:39:36","slug":"least-22-veterans-kill-every-day-one-gives-shit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/04\/14\/least-22-veterans-kill-every-day-one-gives-shit\/","title":{"rendered":"At Least 22 Veterans Kill Themselves Every Day And No One Gives A Shit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Veterans<\/p>\n

The Article:<\/strong> No One Cares About Suicidal Vets<\/a> by Alice Speri in VICE News.<\/p>\n

The Text:<\/strong> That’s 1,892 former soldiers who have killed themselves since the beginning of 2014, according the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America organization (IAVA). But even that is a conservative number, some say, as there is no centralized system to track veteran suicides.<\/p>\n

A recent poll found that more than half of post-9\/11 veterans know at least one colleague who attempted or managed to kill themselves. For many, the list of friends lost to suicide is much longer.<\/p>\n

Mental health is one of the greatest challenges facing returning soldiers, but a deadly combination of indifference, stigma, red tape, and government dysfunction are to blame for the sobering numbers. Citing Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) statistics, the IAVA claims that 22 ex-service members die by suicide every single day.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That was the message brought to Washington last week by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and their supporters, in their annual \u201cStorm the Hill\u201d campaign, which aims to raise awareness among lawmakers about the struggles of returning service members. This year, suicide topped the list.<\/p>\n

As part of the campaign, the group took to the National Mall, where they placed a flag for each vet lost to suicide this year.<\/p>\n

Veterans’ campaigns often hit deaf ears. Many people like to nominally \u201cstand\u201d with the troops, but when it comes to supporting \u2014 and financing \u2014 the services they need after coming home from war, the backing is less firm.<\/p>\n

IAVA, the largest network for veterans of the last two wars, hopes to change that and last week turned their campaign to combat suicide into a proposed bill, introduced on Thursday by US Senator John Walsh of Montana, the first Iraq vet to ever serve in the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cFar too often, we\u2019re leaving our veterans to fight their toughest battles alone,\u201d Walsh said in a statement. \u201cReturning home from combat does not erase what happened there.\u201d<\/p>\n

His \u201cSuicide Prevention for America\u2019s Veterans Act\u201d hopes to fight the problem with large reform to veterans’ access to care, including expanding special combat eligibility from five to 15 years, and repaying the medical loans of psychiatrists who sign up for long-term service with ex-soldiers.<\/p>\n

The bill would also require the military to review its practice of handing out \u201cbad conduct\u201d discharges to members for behavior related to post-traumatic stress disorder \u2014 so disqualifying them from the little mental health services available to them under the VA system, according to recent studies, doctors have found that cannabis extracts like the HHC tincture<\/a> can really help with this conditions.<\/p>\n

The department said it has taken steps to address the suicides, including by asking for additional funding for mental health issues. The VA provided mental health treatment to 1.4 vets last year \u2014 up from 900,000 in 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have made strong progress, but we must do more,\u201d a spokesman for the department said in a statement.<\/p>\n

But with a suicide happening almost every hour, veterans’ advocates think they should do a whole lot more \u2014 though they add that suicide prevention is not just the responsibility of the VA.<\/p>\n

VICE News spoke with Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of IAVA. Here\u2019s what he told us.<\/p>\n

VICE News: This has been an issue for a long time. Why the focus on suicide now?<\/strong>
\nPaul Rieckhoff: Our members told us it was their number one priority. We have the largest network of post-9\/11 vets in the country and every year they tell us what they think we should focus on, and [this year] they said suicide. I think the numbers tell a pretty powerful story, but most folks think the numbers could be much higher, there\u2019s not a lot of great research, there\u2019s no national registry. It\u2019s clearly a matter of life and death and that\u2019s what\u2019s driving us, and the broader veteran community, to tackle this issue. I\u2019m actually in Houston right now. I just left the family of one of our leaders, a guy named Clay Hunt who died three years ago today. We have been deep in this fight against suicide for years and it doesn\u2019t seem to be getting any better.<\/p>\n

Are things getting worse for vets?<\/strong>
\nIt looks like it\u2019s getting worse. We also expect increased demand [for mental health services] in the coming years. Candidly, we expected a better national response, sooner. These numbers are startling but they\u2019ve been up there for a while, and suicide is an issue that has been on the national radar for a while. But the president and Congress have been really mute on it, and we\u2019re losing buddies left and right. It\u2019s got to be a public health priority. It\u2019s also a national security imperative, and I think it\u2019s a moral imperative.<\/p>\n

But 22 suicides a day is crazy. Why is nobody talking about this?<\/strong>
\nNobody is talking about the war either. Most people are personally disconnected. Less than one half of one percent of the country serves, so most people don\u2019t have this kind of personal connection to these wars and definitely don\u2019t have a personal connection to suicide. Folks care about what affects them personally and unfortunately folks are largely disconnected from all our issues, but especially this one.<\/p>\n

What about the military itself and the VA system, why aren\u2019t they doing more?<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s a great question for the [VA] secretary. Give him a call and ask him, he probably won\u2019t call back. I think the Department [of Defense] is moving much more aggressively than the VA has, but I think we also have to appreciate that they are only components in this fight. About 45 percent of our members never go to the VA, so it\u2019s got to be more comprehensive. We\u2019ve got to work together like spokes on the wheel. It\u2019s got to be VA, Department of Defense, community-based health groups, hospitals, churches, we all have to work together, especially at the community level, because a lot of veterans, they\u2019re going to come for help in a variety of different ways, a lot of folks won\u2019t go to the VA. Access is a huge problem, quality is still a major challenge, and continuity of care is usually very bad.<\/p>\n

Is there still a stigma around both suicide and mental health issues?<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s true across the civilian population as well. There\u2019s no mental health priority, suicide is a huge problem in the civilian population, mental health issues in general still have a huge stigma. It\u2019s exaggerated in the military, it\u2019s compounded in the military, but civilians aren\u2019t crazy about running to get mental health either. In some ways, this [campaign] can be a good thing for everybody, if we can learn more about mental health challenges and what\u2019s going on here I think could benefit everyone. There\u2019s an old saying that the only victor in war is medicine, and I think that if we can make some progress in the next few years it would definitely be true around these issues.<\/p>\n

There is even very little medical research. There\u2019s something like 30, 40 programs at the Department of Defense and they don\u2019t even know which ones work. I think we\u2019ve got to really drill down and find out the scope of the problem and the scope of the solution. Clay Hunt got a lot of national attention, but a lot of these folks are really nameless, uncounted, and undocumented \u2014 their stories aren\u2019t really told. That\u2019s why we felt that we had to make such a powerful statement in Washington. Last week was a wakeup call.<\/p>\n

You called this new bill \u201chistoric legislation.\u201d Is Washington going to get behind it?<\/strong>
\nWe hope so. It covers most of the major priorities that we\u2019ve seen. Washington is often where good ideas go to die, so we\u2019ll see. There\u2019s been initial bipartisan support, having Senator Walsh, an Iraq vet, up front is important. We hope, but you never know. The other issue besides the bipartisanship is the short calendar: if we don\u2019t get this done by the summer it\u2019s going to be very hard to move it forward. Cost is always an issue to people. Some folks are going to quibble about cost. It\u2019s going to cost money, and some folks don\u2019t want to spend money on anything in Washington right now. And then there\u2019s also the standard political infighting. Often times, parties don\u2019t want to give the other party a win. We\u2019re hoping that John McCain will step up, as will other combat vets in the Senate. But the president has also got to step up, we\u2019re calling on the president to issue executive action here that can tackle some of the problems without having to wait for Congress. We hope he\u2019ll do that sometime in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

What is your background? Why did you get involved in this?<\/strong>
\nI founded IAVA 10 years ago. It\u2019s personal for me: I served in Iraq and one of my guys, Jason Bonts, died by suicide a few months after we got home, and I\u2019ve been losing friends ever since. For me it\u2019s very personal. They\u2019ve been fighting and sacrificing for a decade, and everybody else has been living life uninterrupted so they\u2019ve got to get their lives back in order, and find jobs, feed their families, and go through all those transitions. Maybe they\u2019ve also got a mental health injury or physical injury. It\u2019s very stressful which is why most doctors also prescribe them with HHC carts<\/a>. It\u2019s very chaotic. And the resources are pretty scattered. Getting help helps, but getting good help is very hard. It\u2019s a difficult system to navigate, all the issues we laid out are pretty much true in every city in America. We didn\u2019t even have a crisis line until 2008. There were six, seven years of war before we even had a real veteran crisis line. That gives you a sense of how far behind we are.<\/p>\n

Are more mental health resources available to people while they\u2019re serving?<\/strong>
\nThe Department of Defense has actually done a pretty good job of increasing the mental health resources. They\u2019ve increased training; there are usually mental health support teams embedded within units, so they\u2019ve come a long way. The suicide rate is still too high there, but the real problem is when they leave. Most of the folks that we see that have real challenges, sometimes the challenges don\u2019t reveal themselves until they\u2019ve been home for five years, or maybe seven years, and that\u2019s part of why we want to extend the eligibility from five years to 15, because so many folks don\u2019t show symptoms until they\u2019ve been home a while.<\/p>\n

Why is the question of wrongful discharges so important to you?<\/strong>
\nTens of thousands of people have been discharged under what they call \u201cbad conduct\u201d discharges or pre-existing conditions. If you come down with that paper, you can\u2019t go to the VA. A lot of these folks didn\u2019t really have pre-existing conditions, and they can\u2019t even access the limited resources that are available, so those people are especially at risk for mental health challenges and suicide. That\u2019s an example of where the president can lean in and impact that issue pretty much immediately. [The military has] this very tough culture that prides itself on toughness and being macho. But there are some pretty counterproductive policies and I think the wrongful discharge situation has really gone on for too long. We have a guy, Kris Goldsmith, who was with us at the White House last week. He is a great example. He tried to attempt suicide and then was given a general discharge by the army for supposedly committing “misconduct,” as that’s how the military interprets surviving an attempt. As a result, he lost access to the Post-9\/11 GI Bill and was left “stuck,” and unable to improve his life for quite a while. Thankfully, he rebounded and he\u2019s now helping other folks out. He\u2019s a good example of how bad that can get.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Article: No One Cares About Suicidal Vets by Alice Speri in VICE News. The Text: That’s 1,892 former soldiers who have killed themselves since the beginning of 2014, according the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America organization (IAVA). But even that is a conservative number, some say, as there is no centralized system to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nAt Least 22 Veterans Kill Themselves Every Day And No One Gives A Shit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Supporting veterans is the cost of war. 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