First to 10 News thank you for posting the suicide hotline phone number, I don't think there is enough done in helping people in general when they are feeling down and want to hurt themselves. This is a very hard time right now for active duty and veterans who are coming back from combat and not getting the help they are silently screaming out for. I honestly don't know what else they can do for the active duty airman, sailor, soldier and marine, they constantly provide training and information for the service member and supervisor, yet these men and women who serve our country right now at this moment continue to either take their lives or injure themselves, the only thing would be to take each and every active duty member from the top leadership to the newest recruit and periodically schedule evaluations on them on a rotating schedule so that each person is evaluated at least twice during each year of they are on active duty.
With active duty the military has the opportunity to deal with each service member because they have the ability to schedule and require them to attend. With the veterans this is much harder because the veteran can't be required to do anything by the military anymore and not all veterans use the military or veteran hospitals to do the screening and even then they can't be ordered to do so.
The most important step to be performed right now is training and getting the word out to the veterans about the dangers of PTS and how that can be a trigger for suicide (as well as other possible triggers). The way to do this is to flood the media market with advertisements on television, radio, print and internet with the importance of getting the mental health care needed, and I believe 95% if not higher veterans require some type of mental health treatment, even those who have not been in a combat situation.
If the US government doesn't act soon in a more proactive manner I am afraid the suicide percentage will continue to increase in the veteran population, however if they implement a training system like I described above then as each member is discharged honorably or not will have the training and the knowledge when they separate
Standoff in Oceanside ends after man surrenders - 10News.com KGTV ABC10 San Diego
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