Suicide takes more military lives than combat, especially among women
When she was growing up, Memorial Day meant a trip to the Honor Wall in the center of Deana Martorella Orellana’s hometown, where the names of Charleroi, Pa., men who died in the world’s battlefields are etched in black granite.
Her family is making that trip without her this year.
She died with inspirational notes stuffed in her pockets. That March morning in 2016, she had gone to Veterans Affairs and asked for counseling.
She couldn’t talk to her family about how her deployment to Afghanistan changed her — and yes, it changed her, they all said — serving on a female engagement team there.
“She talked to one of her sisters about it and said she could take everything except for the children,” said Laurie Martorella, Deana’s mom. “Something about the children really hit her.”
And keeping that inside haunted her.
“Nobody talks about mental health,” Laurie said. “If you do, you’re weak, you’re on medication, it might affect my future earnings, there might be a stigma.”
Deana shot herself at age 28 with a .45-caliber handgun, joining the growing number of military women who end their own lives.
Memorial Day is about these warriors, too.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/05/30/military-suicide-women-sexual-assault-ptsd/
= new reply since forum marked as read
my daughter works at the VA here and we have been discussing "Mission Daybreak" at our house lately...
if only there were good answers
"Ahead of Memorial Day, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs launched the Mission Daybreak challenge: a $20 million competition and accelerator program aimed at fostering innovation to decrease suicide deaths among veterans.
“To end Veteran suicide, we need to use every tool available,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a Wednesday statement announcing the new initiative. “In the most recent National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report more than 45,000 American adults died by suicide — including 6,261 Veterans. That’s why Mission Daybreak is fostering solutions across a broad spectrum of focus areas to combat this preventable problem.”
For phase 1 of the Mission Daybreak challenge, the VA invites organizations and individuals to submit concept papers by July 8 pitching innovative ideas to reduce veteran suicide. The VA will select 30 finalists from among the phase 1 entries to each receive $250,000 and advance to phase 2. Another 10 teams will get a $100,000 “Promise Award.”..."