Approximately 20 veterans commit suicide each day in this country. They risk their lives to protect our freedom, some of them go overseas, boots on the ground, and have seen and experienced things many of us can’t even imagine.
Last Thursday. President Obama addressed the issue of veterans who suffers from PTSD on a CNN town hall meeting. A Gold Star wife and Blue Star mom named Amanda Souza shared an emotional and compelling story about how her husband, a veteran who served 25 years, found he could no longer deal with his illness. In the CNN clip, President Obama discussed the stigma and the myths of PTSD and mental illness in the military.
“If you break your leg, you’re going to go to the doctor to get that leg healed. If, as a consequence of the extraordinary stress and pain that you are witnessing, typically, in a battlefield, something inside you feels like it’s wounded, it’s just like a physical injury. You’ve got to go get help. There’s nothing weak about that. It’s strong.”
Here is the CNN video:
x Embedded Content Here is the transcript:Amanda Souza: Good afternoon, Mr. President.
Thank you for being here.
Throughout my husband's military career, he spent a lot of time overseas, many, many deployments and very, very dangerous missions.
Unfortunately on his last deployment, they were under enemy attack and not everyone made it. The things that may husband had to go through, he had to live with after he came home.
He was diagnosed with PTSD, but unfortunately, like many of our service men and women, this was his career, this was his livelihood and he was too scared to go get help because he did not want to risk being labeled as unstable or weak.
Unfortunately, he did not get the help that he needed. He had a family to support and he ended up joining the ranks of the on average 22 veterans a day that commit suicide.
My question to you is how can we ensure that our military men and women understand that it's OK to get the help that they need and that they're not going to risk their careers, that they are not going to be labeled?
How can we enforce and ensure that especially my son's generation that's - that's coming into the military as careers, that they understand that it's OK to get the help that they need?
How can we change the stereotype?
President Obama: Well, first of all, I just want to thank you so much for sharing your story and creating your organization, because this is something we just have to talk about more. And I - I honor your - your husband's service and I thank your son for his service. And I thank you for your service because you're serving along with them. And, you know, sometimes the - the weight of - of battle comes home. And - and we see this all across our veteran populations.
Two points I'd make.
The first is I have instructed the Joint Chiefs and up and down the chain of command that they have a responsibility to destigmatize mental health issues and issues of PTSD and help to explain to everybody in all of the units under their command that there's nothing weak about asking for help.
If you break your leg, you're going to go to a doctor to get that leg healed. If, as a consequence of the extraordinary stress and pain that you are witnessing, typically, in a battlefield, something inside you feels like it's wounded, it's just like a physical injury. You've got to go get help. And there's nothing weak about that. That's strong. And that is what will allow you then to continue to - with your service and there shouldn't be a stigma against it.
And so we've tried to do that. I mean I've done PSAs myself about it. We've had events in the White House to emphasize this. We've worked with Congress to try to amplify that message.
But ultimately, that has to pervade the culture of our military. There's no weakness in asking for help.
Now, you also have to back it up with resources, so this brings me to my second point. We have increased the funding for mental health services since I've been president by about 75 percent. We've increased the number of mental health providers by about 42 percent. And part of what we're trying to do is start early by embedding, in some cases, clinicians, people who can help, in the units in theater, not just when they get back home, so that when something happens, we're able right away, in addition to going to a chaplain or somebody to - to - to help you process it, you know, you're not waiting for it to fester or, in some cases, self-medicate, which obviously causes problems, as well.
So we're putting money behind this. We are hiring more mental health professionals. But the fact that there's still 20 a day who are feeling hopeless means that we've got to do more. And, you know, anybody who's watching right now, if you call the, you know, veterans help line, there's going to be somebody there to answer. And unfortunately, the vast majority of the 20 that you're talking about are not people who are receiving services.
I'll just tell you one last quick story. One of the most moving moments of my presidency, I get 10 letters a day from people who write me letters. And I got a letter from a woman whose husband was going through this. And she loved him so much, he was such a patriot, but she was scared that he was going to do something to himself. And she asked was there something that I, as commander-in-chief, could do?
And the letter was moving to me and so I do what I often do with these letters, I - I contacted the bureau. I said, can you contact this family and this guy?
I had forgotten about it. And then three years later, at a White House tour, when I'm shaking hands with somebody, a beautiful family, husband, wife, three gorgeous kids and as I'm going down the line shaking hands and I get to this family¸ the guy says, I - sir, I just want to thank you for saving my life. And I say, what do you mean? He said, well, my wife wrote a letter and as a consequence, somebody at the VA actively contacted me and I started getting help and that's why I'm here with my little kids here.
So intervention can work. And I think part of what we also have to do is make sure that the families recognize some of the signs. And in some cases, you may need to help that individual get help. And that's hard to do, because folks are proud, but it's something that I think we all have to be thinking about. Because we're putting folks under such strain, and it adds up, no matter how tough you are. But God bless you. Thank you for everything that you've done to help lift this story up.
Huffington Post adds:
Veteran mental health has been a large focus over the course of Obama’s time in the White House. First Lady Michelle Obama has also spoken out about the devastating effects of PTSD and encouraged members of the military to reach out for support.
“I kept meeting service members and military spouses who were hesitant to ask for help because they thought they should be able to handle it themselves or that seeking help meant they were weak or broken,” she recently told Prevention magazine. “But of course that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama continue to show this country what leadership looks like. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will do the same and that is evident by her long history of showing respect and compassion when helping others. And the we have the Republican nominee, a dangerous man, who can stop himself from insulting and hurting others. In order to stop him from becoming president, all we need to do—is vote.
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