If there’s anything that Congress should be able to do easily and in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion, the cause of preventing suicide among veterans should top the list.
That’s why, late last week, all seven living former secretaries of the Department of Veterans Affairs released a letter asking Congress to declare Nov. 13, which is the Sunday after Veterans Day, as “National Warrior Call Day.” This is the second straight year the secretaries have made this request.
As the letter explained, “A ‘warrior call’ involves a person making a call to military members and/or a veteran … to address the challenge of military and veteran isolation, which correlates strongly with suicide.” It has been widely and regularly reported that the rate of suicide among veterans runs about 50% higher than the general population and that “more veterans have died by suicide in the last 10 years than members of the Armed Forces who died from combat in Vietnam.” Worse, active-duty men between ages 17 and 25 are more than twice as likely to die by suicide than their nonmilitary peers.
The letter also noted that “roughly two-thirds of veterans who take their own lives have had no contact with the VA. … Warrior Call helps connect veterans into the VA system and its attendant focus on helping veterans experiencing intense personal problems. It also encourages peer-to-peer contact, which is essential to wellness.”
The secretaries noted this is a “grassroots initiative occurring outside of government programs,” even if one of the goals is to make veterans aware of existing government programs they aren’t using for help. Other avenues of help are available from Vets4Warriors and at 1-855-838-8255.
The former secretaries are far from the only ones asking Congress to pass this resolution. A large coalition of leaders of conservative groups — think tanks, seniors’ groups, fiscal watchdogs, you name it — released a similar letter on July 25.
“National Warrior Call Day is a straightforward and important effort our nation needs,” they wrote. “It involves no federal dollars.”
For Congress, this initiative should be an easy, uh, call. Congress should pass the resolution post haste and ring in some help for those who help make freedom ring.
