The Defense Department’s latest quarterly suicide report revealed that suicides increased among active-duty service members and reservists over the course of 2020, with a 25% increase in reservist suicides during the fourth quarter of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019.
Some military leaders have attributed the increase to coronavirus “stress.” Pentagon spokesman Army Maj. Cesar Santiago emphasized that only a suicide rate, which has yet to be calculated, will “determine whether a true increase or decrease in suicides occurred across a given population.”
These statements obfuscate the urgency of the military suicide dilemma.
In 2019, the suicide rate for active-duty service members was at a six-year high. About 60,000 veterans died by suicide between 2008 and 2017, when the Department of Veterans Affairs determined that the suicide rate for veterans was “1.5 times the rate for non-veteran adults.”
Expanding numbers of anti-suicide initiatives are making little difference. As Marine Corps Maj. Thomas Schueman explains, despite the huge investment of “financial and human capital in the mental health realm … by any measure of effectiveness, we are completely missing the target.”
The issue is personal for Schueman, who lost three Marines formerly under his command to suicide in 2020. When he set out to find resources to help other veterans, he discovered that most programming was focused on the Special Forces community and wounded veterans. Suicide was an issue that affected a far broader swath of the population. In fact, veterans who never deployed are 48% more likely to commit suicide than their peers who did deploy. Transition out of the military is a particular time for strain, with one study finding that suicide rates peaked for veterans six to 12 months after separation.
Drawing on Veterans Affairs psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Shay’s findings that Vietnam veterans healed best when they were in community with one another, Schueman believes that today’s veterans can experience growth by creating meaningful connections with members of their tribe.
In November 2020, Schueman founded Patrol Base Abbate to combat military suicide and assist veterans during and after transition. Staffed entirely by volunteers, the nonprofit organization is open to every former and current service member and reservist at no cost. It honors its namesake Sgt. Matthew Abbate, a humble powerhouse of a Marine, and the posthumous recipient of the Navy Cross for the bravery and leadership he displayed on the battlefield during his final deployment to Sangin, Afghanistan, where he died during a “Coalition airstrike and enemy attack” on Dec. 2, 2010.
Patrol Base Abbate consists of three interconnected efforts. A virtual component fosters communication between members at any time in any location. By joining a virtual club (with activities such as fight, gun, strength, book, outdoors, or military history), members can also explore shared interests.
During the summer, members of each club will be chosen by lottery for retreats at the physical patrol base in Thompson Falls, Montana. In Big Sky Country, members will learn from experts in their field and perform purpose-driven service to make improvements on the sparse cabin and its surroundings.
Finally, Patrol Base Abbate has regional clubs based in California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Texas. Regional clubs allow veterans to give back to the community through service. They also provide opportunities for socializing and excursions such as a turkey hunt, a climb up Mount Rainier, and a surfing retreat.
Already home to several thousand members, Patrol Base Abbate aims to be the nation’s largest veteran service organization. The nonprofit group is working to educate service members of every branch, on every military base, about its programming and to provide information about Patrol Base Abbate at the transition seminars in which departing service members participate.
“If the first year of transition is the hardest,” Schueman says, “we want vet[erans] to get plugged into a community” before transitioning. “If one of the leading causes of suicide is isolation, then let’s get vet[erans] connected early.” Veterans are more resilient, he says, if they “have a tribe and a purpose.”
Current efforts to counter suicide in the military community can frame “veterans as victims,” Schueman says. He wants to show “veterans as victors” and harness the value and power inherent in every veteran and service member. By recreating the strong bonds established during military service, Patrol Base Abbate plans to foster an enduring sense of community that can cut down the demons of isolation and stress, wherever and however they arise.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
