REPORT SHOWS MILITARY FIGURES

A report released by the Department of Defense on military suicides in the first quarter of 2015 shows that 99 servicemembers took their own lives from January through March. Senator Joe Donnelly says it’s a reminder that much work remains to address the issue of military suicide. The Pentagon report comes days after a study analyzing nearly 10,000 suicide attempts among almost 1 million active-duty servicemembers during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2004-2009. The study found that suicide attempts by active-duty servicemembers during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were most common in newer enlisted servicemembers who had not been deployed.

Last year, according to the Pentagon in new adjusted numbers, 442 servicemembers took their own lives. In 2014, for the third straight year, more servicemembers were lost to suicide than in combat.

Donnelly has worked to advance legislation to improve mental health care for servicemembers, veterans, and their families, and he continues to work on passing additional provisions as part of the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On Thursday, Donnelly was named to the conference committee to iron out differences and help the Senate and House reach an agreement on a final NDAA bill. In March, he introduced the “Servicemember and Veteran Mental Health Care Package” (“Care Package”).

The “Care Package” military mental provisions in the national defense bill would require all providers employed by DoD to receive training in identifying suicide risk every three years and promote the use of uniform best practices. It also would strengthen the quality of care for servicemembers by: incentivizing training for community providers on the unique needs of servicemembers and their families; creating a special military-friendly designation for private providers that meet eligibility criteria and establish a regularly-updated online registry so servicemembers can search for these specially-designated community providers.

Donnelly’s Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Prevention Act, was signed into law late last year and for the first time requires an annual mental health assessment for all servicemembers—Active, Guard, and Reserve.