When veterans service organization Mission Roll Call launched in 2019, its goal was to connect with more than 20 million veterans in order to understand their needs and advocate for their diverse interests at all levels of society. After amassing more than 500,000 members on social media and email in its first eight months, Mission Roll Call has now unveiled a new anti-suicide initiative that will connect veterans with the nonveteran community.
When Director Garrett Cathcart and the Mission Roll Call team traveled the country interviewing veterans, they found that one of their greatest concerns is the crisis of veteran suicide. Veterans Affairs confirms an astonishing problem. Its 2019 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report found that veterans commit suicide at a rate about 1 1/2 times that of civilians, with around 20 veterans dying from suicide every day.
Mission Roll Call has undertaken a multifaceted approach to combating veteran suicide. First, Cathcart has advocated for change at the national level by submitting written testimony and letters of support to the House and Senate committees on veterans’ affairs in support of Senate Bill 785, passed in August. The law would provide funding to expand VA healthcare to all veterans for their first year after transitioning from active duty and would cover additional VA mental health resources and suicide prevention research.
Mission Roll Call also promotes a more individualistic method of helping veterans who struggle with suicidal thoughts. Rejecting the notion that veterans are irreparably broken from their service or that post-traumatic stress is a lifelong affliction, Mission Roll Call focuses on building awareness of post-traumatic growth, the ability to recover from trauma, and “find healing and hope.”
When the coronavirus pandemic began, Cathcart said he “read stories about doctors being depressed from all the death they saw in such a short amount of time” and saw that Mission Roll Call’s message about post-traumatic growth could be useful outside the veteran community. A graduate of the United States Military Academy with deployments to both Afghanistan and Iraq, Cathcart had an understanding of frontline workers’ pain. “I had soldiers die in my arms during combat,” he explained. “[Frontline healthcare workers] have had patients die in their care. The effects are the same. They change a person forever.”
This realization spawned From My Frontline to Yours, an online campaign to raise awareness that veterans, frontline healthcare workers, and “any American who had a sudden loss during COVID-19 can build back stronger than ever.” Veterans, Cathcart elaborated, “have experienced death and sudden loss, and we know there is hope and healing on the other side. Sometimes, just linking arms with someone and saying, ‘I understand,’ is a huge step in their recovery. That’s what we want to do with this campaign.”
Through From My Frontline to Yours, Mission Roll Call has used lessons learned in the sometimes insular veteran community to increase the quality of life for everyone struggling from the isolation, loss, and post-traumatic stress of life amid the pandemic. The campaign urges all “Americans to check on their family and friends and ask about their mental health during [the coronavirus] pandemic.”
“We don’t want anyone to feel alone or desperate,” Cathcart elaborated. “With the right supports and information, people don’t have to stay isolated.”
“From My Frontline to Yours” is unique among veterans service organizations’ mental health campaigns in that its focus on shared experiences could bridge the widening divide between civilians and service members and veterans, the latter two of which together make up less than 8% of the population. The initiative also allows veterans to “be a lead to the rest of the country,” which could invigorate the sense of service and purpose that characterized their former professions.
For Cathcart, the campaign is about coming together to save lives during a time of immense stress. People “are designed to be in community,” he explained. “I think the more we are aware that suicide happens in times like these, isolation and sudden trauma, the more we can take action to prevent it. … Saving even one life changes the world. Isn’t that what we all want to do?”
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
