More active-duty soldiers and veterans have died from suicide than from combat wounds over the last two years — and Congress wants to know why the VA hasn’t done more to prevent it.
The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee will put the question Wednesday to Janet Kemp, the Department of Veterans Affairs’s national suicide prevention coordinator. The impetus for the committee’s hearing: a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this month that lamented the VA’s “unchecked incompetence” in dealing with the mental health of veterans.
Continue Reading
POLITICO 44
But that ruling is just the latest indication of a mental health system that has been known to be failing the nation’s veterans for years — a fact that can be confirmed by just about any veteran who has tried to deal with the system.
“I won’t trust the VA,” said Sgt. First Class John Kyte, a decorated Iraq War veteran who is in treatment for a serious disorder that has caused him to black out more than 40 times. Kyte also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I’m going to stay with Tricare and the military doctors,” the Army mechanic told POLITICO in
Read More from the Article Source: Full Article
