Veterans need more than a ‘thank you for your service’
The islands will again mark Veterans Day with the Annual Veterans Day Celebration on Sanibel.
Island residents treat current and former military personnel with respect and gratitude. As well we should: Those who dedicate years of their lives to service to our country.
But after we celebrate the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month — the time and date of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I — after we enjoy lunch, eat dinner and maybe take part in that Annual Veterans Day Celebration; after we tuck our loved ones in bed and get some sleep ourselves, we will have lost another 17 military veterans to suicide.
The suicide rate among military personnel is now 1.65 times the rate of non-veteran adults — 17.2 every day — according to the 2021 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in September.
Of the 45,861 adults who died in the U.S. as a result of suicide in 2019, 6,261 were veterans, who collectively comprised 13.7 percent of all deaths by suicide.
These numbers are heartbreakingly significant. Consider: Four times as many veterans have died via suicide than were killed in battle since 9/11.
According to a paper prepared by doctorial candidate Thomas Howard Suitt, III of Boston University released in June, an estimated “30,177 active duty personnel and veterans of the post 9/11 wars have died by suicide, significantly more than the 7,057 service members killed in post-9/11 war operations.”
His heavily-footnoted paper states the actual number “is likely higher than the VA records indicate.”
“The difficulty in coming to the actual number stems from the V.A. not differentiating veteran suicides by their time of service, and they have inconsistently measured suicides since 2001 and have yet to report the actual number of post-9/11 veterans who have committed suicide,” the paper, entitled “High Suicide Rates among United States Service Members and Veterans of the Post-9/11 Wars,” states.
We agree, the number of veterans deaths due to suicide is concerning — terribly so — although the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs wove a note of hope through its latest report:
There has been some reduction, albeit small, in veteran suicides since its last report.
“Although VA is heartened that 399 fewer Veterans died by suicide in 2019 compared to 2018, VA is poignantly and painfully mindful that 6,261 Veterans died by suicide in 2019,” the report states.
A couple of things.
Any downward trend would certainly be welcome.
However the numbers in the VA’s 2021 report are both dated and pre-pandemic. Like all of us, U.S. veterans underwent the resulting economic crisis that first saw thousands forced from jobs and now sees, at least here in Southwest Florida, housing costs soaring beyond any wage gains for the re-employed.
The VA report takes this into account, saying these things appear not to have had a negative impact.
“COVID-19-related data continues to emerge and clarify, but data thus far do not indicate an increase in Veteran suicide-related behaviors. Additionally, the level of differential mortality by mental health status has not increased,” the report states.
Let us be blunt: We doubt it.
And so, perhaps, does the VA itself.
“It also remains to be seen the impact of COVID-19 beyond the data and surveillance tools and means currently available to VA,” the report states. “Furthermore, the potential for a negative rebound effect in the proximal years following initial impact of wide-scale catastrophic or seismic events witnessed within modern history merits vigilance paired with aggressive prevention and intervention preparation and implementation since the pandemic began.”
Indeed.
To that end a number of mental health programs have been expanded or launched as part of the VA’s “public health approach that combines both community-based and clinically based strategies across prevention, intervention, and postvention areas of focus,” including a grant program designed to strengthen local community outreach efforts to veterans and families to “provide them with suicide prevention services, and connect them to resources within the community and VA to prevent Veteran suicide.”
The plan going through 2021 is a continued firearms safety campaign as guns remain the suicide method of choice for male and female veterans.
What does this mean to veterans and their families?
“399 fewer, 6,261 to go,” the VA report concludes. “We hold this belief to be true: Suicide is preventable on the individual and on the community level. We have a plan: We believe in and are implementing a data-founded public health approach across prevention, intervention, and postvention domains within clinical and community settings alike and with tailored applications across population segments and needs. We have the heart and the will, but we know that suicide prevention will require all of us collectively and uniquely engaged within a unifying and overriding goal of saving lives from suicide. We, therefore, continue to seek everyone’s support, partnership, and engagement.”
We have no argument with a health-based approach.
It is science-based.
And it is needed.
Sorely needed.
But what also is sorely needed is greater support — much greater support — on the financial side.
Veterans diagnosed with mental health issues can go months without the diagnosis needed to best qualify for benefits.
Care can be stymied by provider shortages as well as cost-driven medication protocols that include political micromanaging.
While the VA states it typically takes 94 days to get a disability claim processed, veterans groups say it could take much longer.
And it may take months — years — for a veteran to finally acknowledge a mental health issue, because, as Mr. Suitt’s paper states, a veteran’s military training, and his or her immersion in and acceptance of military culture … “may significantly contribute to avoidance of help-seeking behaviors. In other words, service members may be less likely to reflect on their experiences or to seek help for their trauma for fear of looking weak or unmanly in the eyes of their subordinates, peers, and commanding officers.”
“In general, veterans tend to have a stigma against mental health care and tend to match the general public’s negative view of those who seek help as dangerous and worthy of social avoidance,” Mr. Suitt wrote.
And so, a perfect desert storm with fatalities still climbing.
This Veterans Day let us “thank a vet” two ways.
We urge you to reach out to elected officials on the state and national level and demand easy-access emergency resources as veterans in the VA claims chute await benefits. There is a dire need for an immediate and necessary financial buffer.
And if you know a veteran who may be struggling, please reach out. Today.
Military personnel who need help can call the Veterans Crisis Line at 800-273-8255. Suicidal troops and veterans can call the Military Crisis Line at 800-273-8255, press 1, for assistance, or text 838255. Confidential online chat session are available at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat.
In Florida, veterans with a disability rating of 30 percent or greater, or awaiting a claim determination, can contact the Wounded Veterans Relief Fund at wvrf.org/veterans-programs/ for possible financial assistance. A VA referral is required.
Veterans need more than a “Thank you for your service” from we flag-pin-wearing civilians.
They need thanks for that service in terms of the health care promised as well as financial support as they work to get well.
— Reporter editorial