U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly released the following statement in response to the Department of Defense’s (DoD) new report on military suicides in 2014. The Pentagon reported Tuesday that 434 service members took their own lives last year, including 268 active component service members, 79 reserve service members, and 87 National Guard members.
Donnelly, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, “For the third straight year, we lost more service members to suicide than in combat. This Pentagon report is a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do to end the scourge of military suicide. Our service members sacrifice to protect us, and we must work nonstop to support them. While suicide is a complex issue with no simple solutions, I believe it is a challenge we can—and must—address. We made progress last year, and I will continue to work on legislation that seeks to improve service member and veteran mental health.”
The Pentagon report on military suicide in 2014 shows that active duty suicide rose slightly from 254 in 2013 to 268 in 2014. The number of suicides decreased in the National Guard from a record high of 134 in 2013 to 87 in 2014 and fell from 86 in 2013 to 79 in the Reserve. In 2013, a record number of service members in the National Guard took their own lives, and we lost 474 service members overall, more than three times the number killed in combat (132). In 2012, according to new adjusted numbers from the Pentagon, 512 service members took their own lives.
In March, Donnelly introduced the “Servicemember and Veteran Mental Health Care Package” (“Care Package”), three bipartisan bills to help improve mental health services for troops and veterans. The “Care Package” would help ensure there are a sufficient number of and the best trained mental health providers for service members and veterans. The package includes:
- The Military and Veterans’ Mental Health Care Provider Assessment Act, which would require all providers employed by DoD and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to receive training in identifying suicide risk every three years and promote the use of uniform best practices across both departments;
- The Community Provider Readiness Recognition Act, which would establish a special military/veteran-friendly designation for private providers that are trained to meet the unique needs of servicemembers and veterans; and
- The Frontline Mental Health Provider Training Act, which would establish a pilot program to assess how physician assistants can fill the gap in DoD and VA mental health care.
Donnelly’s signature legislation, the Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Prevention Act, was signed into law late last year and seeks to help prevent military suicide by:
- requiring annual mental health assessments for all service members, including Active Duty, Guard, and Reserve;
- maintaining strong privacy protections for service members; and
- requiring a Pentagon report to evaluate existing military mental health practices and provide recommendations for expansion and improvement.
The Sexton Act is named after Indiana National Guardsman Jacob Sexton, a native of Farmland, Indiana, who took his own life in 2009 while home on a 15-day leave from Afghanistan. For more information on the Sexton Act, click here.
