>> about the organization, what is troop forced foundation? >> it is an outreach organization that was established back in late 2000 to connect with our warriors who were deploying overseas. initially it was a number of personalities, david verity who was a golf commentator. a number of other pga alumni who went forward into the iraq combat theater you interact with the troops. they were subsequently so moved by that experience that they came back and decided to establish a foundation that would help the outreach to those warriors who have served. >> and then the warrior call, what is that? >> that is an evolution of the initial troops first initiative. we are now trying to connect with active duty and veterans who are struggling. those who have disconnected in an isolated, dark place. >> talk a little bit about those disconnection, one of the causes and results in some cases? >> you have heard a lot about post-traumatic stress disorder. not enough of a moral injury, which is a key factor. substance use disorder and so forth. we referred to this as a rubric of visible wounds. many times you will see our veterans, men and women come home with visible wounds as a result of some disfigurement, amputations. the majority of them are hosting what we call invisible wounds. those winds on the inside that we cannot see and are just as damaging as they win visible wounds that you do see on veterans. what we try to do is make a connection with them. especially if they are disconnected from services that may be available to them. or they just do not know how to navigate their way into the system and get help. >> the invisible ones that you talk about, as far as how that expresses itself, how does suicide factor into it? >> again, when someone gets into a dark place and isolation is one of the key factors that we have seen in a lot of these suicide cases. they become disconnected from their tribe. they have left their military unit, in many cases they have disconnected from family and friends. they get into a dark place. they get to a position of hopelessness and then bad things happen. >> according to the statistics from veterans affair, this was a report latest last year. 5200 suicides of veterans in 2015. that is 400 fewer suicides in 2019 and 2018. in 2019 the veteran suicide decreased to 17 per day. in that case, what does that tell you about those trends when it comes to suicide among veterans? >> pedro, i am not confident those figures are correct. as an old homicide effective i know from doing many death investigations there are deaths that occur in the gray zone. in our times of opioid crisis and other substance use challenges we are having a lot of deaths that we cannot rule as a homicide or clearly as a suicide. they are unattended. i believe there is a number of veterans that fall into the gray zone category and are not being counted. just like any type of statistical reference, depending on how you manipulate the variables your numbers are going to come out different ways. i believe that our numbers are probably up not down, we have not seen the worst of it. 20 years of persistent conflict, we are going to see the wake of the service to the nation. a lot of these men and women have stopped forward and volunteered to protect our security, protect our freedoms. that is what this day is all about. to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, to include those who have died from suicide as a result or consequence. >> that takes on a personal meaning for you as far as your family is concerned. could you tell our audience about that? >> yes, from a personal perspective five years ago my son took his life, he was a highly decorated and revered navy seal. after he came home from his last deployment to afghanistan, after two hard combat deployments to iraq and two to afghanistan, lebanon, other points of conflicts around the world he started, like many of our veterans that we hear about. especially those with invisible wounds. slip disorder, a problem with anxiety, depression, became short fused and his whole personality changed. he started spiraling down over the course of two years. as he stepped forward to get help the system really did not respond. it failed and he fell through the cracks. it was not an easy solution or an easy fix. it became a little ugly and he. the defense health and the va, the agencies we depended on to take care of him failed. subsequently he one day took his own life. he heads a to me before the day he died he said, if anything ever happens to me i want you to donate my brain for traumatic brain injury research. all along he had said that something was wrong with his head but nobody was listening and they kept telling him he was crazy. as a result over the course of two years we try to rescue him he was prescribed over 40 different medications. over the counter all the way to high-end, psychotropic drugs that made him feel like he was not even in his own skin. this story is not unique. you go and talk to other veterans and hear the same reflections over and over again. we have had this pattern that has really been illuminated and is growing. we still don't have a lot of answers as to why we are dealing with the number of suicides that we are dealing with, and why they continue to go up. my belief is that they are going up and not down, despite some of the statistical references that the va has put out recently. >> let me invite the audience into the conversation. if you want to and ask are questions. veterans for those of you have questions (202)-748-8000, if you are active duty (202)-748-8001, and all others (202)-748-8002. this idea of traumatic brain injury. something you need to look more closely at, especially when you look at the after effects of how this is affecting veterans with suicide or other ways. can you expand on that? >> there is a growing body of evidence to 19 dramatic brain injury to suicide. -based what we are finding out, and i am an evidence based individual of 35 years in law enforcement. i am all about the evidence. there is a growing body of research and evidence as a result of that research that is pointing to undiagnosed brain injury. that is at the microscopic level. this is what my son basically suffered from. two months after his death we were able to get his brain donated to a research project. the national military medical center into a study that was researching traumatic brain injury from blast exposure. two months later they called us in and they said your son had an undiagnosed severe level of microscopic brain injury. that was uniquely related to last exposure. this is not unlike what we see with our contact sports players with the chronic traumatic nfl of a theory -- . a distant pattern of injury with a blast exposure that is different than the cte. both of those conditions are handicapped in that we do not have the diagnostics to see it in a living person. i believe we are starting to get there but this is where we need the research. we need good science to tell us what is going on. which may explain why some of these cases with the conflict rubric of ptsd, moral injury, substance use disorder, is so hard to deal with. and why the traditional approach of treating symptoms with drugs is not working. i do not want to be irresponsible and say that the drugs are not playing an important role. but time and time again we hear stories about the over use of drugs, off label, prescribed by people who really do not have the background in psychiatry or mental health. they are prescribing drugs for depression and other behavioral health conditions that are turning our veterans and our active duty folks, who are in distress, upside down. we need to find a better way and the science can help illuminate that fact. if we can make this a priority in effort and research. i do not have confidence that our defense health agency or army a will solve this problem. we need to partner with the academia and folks on the outside who have parts of this effort. and pull them together for a unity of effort and the sharing of data that i believe will illuminate the path forward. as far as traumatic brain injury and the solutions that could potentially help the men and women who share this nation. >> i was going to ask a specific as far as this va is considering or where a veteran can turn with a government assisted thing. how are they set up to help issues of suicide directly? >> i will say va has been getting better. my initial contact with them in support of my son was not a good one. it was very bureaucratic, it was hard to navigate, as i am trying to help him navigate through the system i am thinking. how does somebody who does not have assistance navigate through it? especially when they are up ended with a number of these conditions? i think we have a long way to go, to be honest with you. we have been in this for over 20 years and we have not moved the ball very far down the field. i find it distressing, two media reports came out recently. one where the army secretary was referencing the fact that recruitment is getting harder. the rate ofbecause the jan z ges concerned about the rate of suicide of the military sexual sought that is occurring and the hazing. it is turning them away from voluntary service. it is becoming a challenge. the other is the report that came out yesterday where they department of defense is offering up $3 million for novel ways to control suicide. i see that as a sign of not a positive. i see that as a sign of desperation. >> 20 million dollar awards of $3 million. that was announced in the last few days. >> and then they formed this new commission which is going to be led by a mental health expert and heavily-populated by mental health. i do not want to criticize the panel. they are all very notable people with a great passion to solve this very difficult challenge. i do not see a cadre of folks there with a neuroscience background, with the research background to either confirm or deny whether we are dealing with a level of traumatic brain injury or other biological cause that could be influencing the problem. not solely mental health. >> we have some calls lined up for you. this is from a veteran, gerald, in north carolina. you are on with our guest of troops first foundation. go ahead. >> hello, sir, i believe that the answer to our gun problem in this country is not to amend the second amendment but to offer an additional amendment to the constitution whereby any state, city, or county could opt out and make its own rules for the people living within their jurisdiction. >> i apologize, color, you may be referencing our previous segment. to the point he is making overall, access to weapons as far as mental health is concerned, especially amongst veterans. whether you think needs to be done on that front? >> i think it is important when you have a better and getting into a critical stage of behavior or a risky stage of behavior where they may be having suicidal ideations, talking about suicide, maybe exhibiting signs of severe isolation, depression, and so forth. access to those weapons is a real concern. anytime, either with the assessment of law enforcement, family, friends, teammates, remove those guns from easy access. a lot of those suicide instances are very spontaneous. if they do not have immediate access to weapons i think at times it does prevent the horrible act from happening. again, part of our mantra here at warrior call is to make a call, take a call, and have an honest conversation was a veteran or active duty warrior. with the idea of connecting to them and sensing whether they are in a bad place. if so, get them connected to a warm hand and resources that could potentially help pull them out of that dark place. pull them out of the position of desperation, which we see too often in instances of suicide. >> andrew is next, andrew in new jersey. also a veteran, hello. >> yes, hello, mr. large and. >> hi, andrew. >> yes, good morning. on this memorial day you must remember their son and all of the others,, my question is what have we've been dealing with this traumatic brain injury for years. with the soldiers, the navy seals in afghanistan, multiple deployments like your son. why is the veterans administration treating this which has masking the problem? why not take the root of the problem? because first of all the data that they are saying about veterans suicide is inaccurate. i have never heard of mission 22. >> yes i have. >> okay, mission 22 estimates that a veteran commit suicide every 22 minutes. now, i, personally, believe, i may be wrong, that the government said these kids off to these long term multiple deployments, they were overwhelmed by it. they never expected this to happen but thank you for the work that you do, okay? because we need people like you to pick up the broken pieces so that this can be prevented. thank you. >> andrew, let me pick up on that. if i may, pedro. this is where i believe we need the research. because, again, we're going to continue to default toward a mental health diagnosis that refers to the dsm-5 diagnostic chart. which very often is tied to have these clinicians get reimbursed for their services, they've got to come up with a diagnosis against this chart in order to get their services compensated. we need the science to really prove that the world's round, not flat. until then, much of this, if not all, is going to continue to default toward a mental health diagnosis. with, again, incorporating the very heavy drugs and other options that have not been working that well. again, i want to clarify, it's not to say that this isn't a hand and glove relationship. but if there is an underlying biological injury, thin these people are not crazy. a very well may be injured, injured as a result of service to this nation. and this is how we should be approaching this. the fact that we cannot see it is not an excuse for not moving in this direction to confirm or deny whether this exists or not. and that is all i'm asking for. i mean, for five years now i have really been pushing the department of defense and the va to tell me, through research, what is the level of last over pressure that actually starts to cause this microscopic injury. because we have collected a lot of data off the battlefield and training. it's interesting, because much of this exposure we assess, 80% or more, is coming from the training environment. training to go to combat as opposed to being in combat. when you're in combat, it's anything goes. if we can develop a sense of where our risk thresholds are as they relate to our weapon systems that we use, as they relate to explosives, as they relate to improvised explosive devices that we confront on the battlefield, then i believe we can bide down the risk of the exposure and potentially buy down the tbi. if this proves to be a significant component into why this is so difficult and the relationship to suicide, if that makes sense. >> it's not only veterans affairs during the research that you talked about? has it been expanded to nih or any other research bodies of the federal government? >> again, all of them play a role in different ways. and i h is doing some interesting studies on imaging, trying to detect changes in the brain following over pressure exposure. the department of defense has, i believe, put 1.5 billion dollars toward tbi research. but not a lot to show for it. the other thing i will say is, you know, since 9/11 there's been a lot of legislative action that has been put into the pipeline and haven't -- having been the former senate sergeant at arms for four years i have a bit of an inside ball on that. but when you look at the amount of legislation that has been written to address tbi, moral injury, substance use disorder, ptsd, other combat related or deployment related issues that affect our military. very little has come at the other end. so, there needs to be and accountability for when this legislation and direction is given to the department to do acts, it's somebody following up to verify that that has been done? or has been done to the level of expectation? this is part of, i believe, the problem we've been experiencing on why we have not moved closer to the end zone on this. >> let's hear from john, he's and virginia. also on our line for veterans. you're on with frank larkin, go ahead, john. >> frank, can you hear me? pedro, can you hear me? >> you can. >> -- i bet you probably don't get much praise for working holidays, we do appreciate, it the general public. i'm sure you'd rather be working from home with your family, pedro. i had post-traumatic stress disorder 40 years ago i came back from korea, and understand what it's like to go from these experiences. i don't know what i had four years ago, but i also knew a veteran that was living in omaha, nebraska, ten years ago, who did take his life. you have to realize, somewhere between five and ten vietnam veterans take their lives every day in this country. i realize that we're talking about the -- but don't forget about us to, came from 74 when i was in omaha. i was also a civil service working for d.o.d., but these are the issues i see here as well. there are other groups that should be more involved, like the veterans of foreign wars, they're not. they're not a very effective veterans group from what i've seen in my exposure to them. so, that's all i wish to say. >> okay. john it virginia, thank you. >> john, you bring up a valid point. this is about unity of effort, about sharing data, putting a level of urgency on this. it's not because we lack intellectual ability or capacity, we just need to organize. just like we did against cancer, against hiv and a.i.d.s., covid. we've got the ability to solve this but we just have had all these boutique, disconnected efforts that have been going on for the last 20 plus years, we really need some leadership. and that leadership needs to come from an individual who's got skin in the game, who understands this problem. not a doctor, not a researcher, not a mental health expert. but someone who has business accurate in, understands organizational dynamics, project management and can drive this thing to get results. because it's really the veterans and our active duty warriors, if it doesn't connect with them, if it doesn't impact their quality of life then you've got to ask the question. so what? >> it was a president last, year put a series of initiatives and to look at the topic of suicide. when they released those ideas, at least the concepts, they wrote this. saying, in the coming months, agencies will collaborate to raise awareness among service members, veterans and their families, educated trained health care providers and crisis responders and evaluate the effectiveness of new and existing programs that may reduce access to legal means. this will include designing and launching a campaign to increase the safe storage of firearms and medications, and the use of safe firearms by providers. these are part of another series of initiatives, but at least from the white house was part, how do you think they're doing on the issue? >> well, look, i will go back that if it's not resonating at the deck plate level, at the ground level with the veterans, our warriors their families, then you've got to say where are the gaps. very often, these initiatives it at the national policy level, much higher in the stratosphere. and it's not connecting at the local level. so, this is really a community level challenge. to be able to put the training and education at the hands of the people that are closest to those who are struggling. this also includes, for active duty, leadership from the top down. giving them the tools to be able to deal with these situations. this is very often where, inside the wire, inside the uniform services where we see the problem. this is a leadership issue for d.o.d., without the education, with at the training, without the ability to remove the stigmas and barriers of entry, then you are going to have people like my son, ryan, fall through the cracks as a result of the service to their nation. because, you have to remember, when they came in voluntarily and enlisted or commissioned into service, they were deemed to be healthy and 100 percent ready to serve this nation. so, something has happened in between that date and the way we see them now. we've got to understand that. without the tools and the education and the points of entry that we can effectively get to these folks early. with good diagnostics, good triage processes. and we're going to continue to see these suicides. i don't think we've seen the worst of it yet. if we don't get on top of this and make this a national priority -- when you look at the calculus of wet brain injury cost us in our health care system and impact in society, it's in the trillions of dollars. >> do you know if any trends have already occurred for those veterans returning from afghanistan, when it comes to suicide? maybe even goes as far back as a rack as well, as far as overall we're seeing. >> i think one is the transition is very difficult, this idea of isolation. i answer this question with the previous color, john, are the one before, bringing up korea and vietnam. as i've been told from our prior campaigns in world war i and world war ii, it took many months to get those folks home. there is a belief that, during that time, they went through some levels of decompression. they were with their teammates, they talk about their experiences, they were able to off-load a lot of that stress. whereas the further we've advanced to modern day, we are removing people from the battlefield in their home here in the states, in some cases, within 24, 48 hours. and then they're walking through the front door of their homes and everyone expects them to be normal after the experiences that they've had. especially when we talk about moral injury, you know, we raise our kids to value human life, respect the law, respect each other. and that we train them up to be these warriors and we send them places around the world where that's not exactly how things operate. and they come home burdened with these moral challenges. >> hold that thought. there is a recent hearing on the senate side, it was made independent senator angus king talking to the army secretary about the idea of a military transition program and how they help as far as making that transition that you spoke about, and suicides overall. will play a little bit of the exchange and get your thoughts. >> i work with a lot of veterans in maine. one of the problems that keeps coming up is the weakness of the transition from active duty to veteran status, the handoff from the defense department to the va. i believe, i don't have the data in front of me, but that many of the veterans suicides take place in that relatively short period of time between active duty and civilian status. i believe that you should put as much resources, time and effort and people into the transition out as you do into recruiting in. can you address that problem? because, from everything i've learned on the ground in maine, this is a serious issue. >> certainly, senator. and, yes i think there is data that shows that that transition out of the service, back into the civilian community, can be a critical time. we do try to work very closely with the department of veterans affairs to ensure that there is a warm hand off. with the transition programs that we have for folks getting out of the army, we try to make sure that they have the resources to know what to expect, to be able to link them to employment resources and things like that. but i think that is something that we can continue to work on. frankly, i've heard some folks say, you know, the transition programs help me learn how to tie a tie and to do a resume. but psychologically, making the adjustment to going back into the civilian world isn't i've heard people sometimes say they get as much emphasis on. i think that is an area that we could work on. >> mr. clark in, what do you think of not only the questions posed by the senator but the response from the army secretary? >> i think they're valid. again, transition is an important part. we've seen too many times where our veterans have left active duty service, they've jumped out of this plane, so to speak, without their parachute. they haven't thought about their transition flight path. or they jumped out with a parachute but haven't identified where they're going to land. you know, you've got to support yourself when you come out. they've got to think about this in advance of the victor the line and going through that at the line. as far as the transition programs go, depends on where you are and how serious that command is taking transition. you know, you've got to remember, our services, our military operation, army, navy, marines, air force, it's about operations. so, they're looking at the windshield, they're not looking in the rearview mirror. and so, when somebody transitions out, it's almost not really our problem anymore. but the issue of transition is a factor and i would say the downward spiral of many of the veterans we've seen, if they don't have a good place to land. so, this means how do you take the skill sets that they've had in the military and crosswalk them over into the civilian theater. very often there is a translation issue. you know, the definitions or the job descriptions over on the military side don't exactly and that being well understood on the civilian side. so, we need to do a better job of that. but transition is very important. and, again, i think it needs to be a holistic approach. not only from the military with transition programs but also the catcher's mitt on the private sector side, on the civilian side. and how they help receive. so, again, it goes hand in glove with mental health resources, goes hand in hand with being able to respect them and provide them with a sense of dignity once they separate service. and to maintain that momentum so that we do not get that separation, which very often leads to that destructive isolation. >> we are having a conversation with frank clark in and warrior call, this is ron in michigan. going online for veterans. go ahead. >> yes, i will try not to fumble this. i do appreciate the you know what you are talking about. i understand a lot of that. i would like to know is what you do about people like me. i have now lived 50 years in perpetual depression, i am not going to kill myself, i am not living the best life but i do not want to die. i do not want a sour look at life. a little bit of help right now would go a long way, three times i have sought help from the va and ended up with basically a kick in the -- i cannot do that. the mental health care that i have gotten is stuff i have paid for out of pocket. no insurance, 75, $125 a session. you can only do that for certain periods of time. it worked but i cannot get it without paying for it. a little bit of physical help to at least cut the grass or something would also go a long way with me. does anybody do anything like that? >> that is rob telling a story in michigan, thank you for calling. >> ron, i think we have heard other reflections like that from other veterans. my recommendation is locally to tie up with your veteran service organizations. your vfw, other groups that are local and talk to veterans like yourself. some of the options that may exist locally in your area. i go back to the local because if it goes outside of that local geographical parameter then it is very hard for a lot of these folks to connect to. if they have to travel 100 or 200 miles to get to a level of services, that is not going to be something that is going to be a great utility for them. unless there is a very specific need that only that facility can address. i would say the vfw and others like the american legion are great organizations. they have great resources, potentially could help with other options. what a lot of us try to do is partner together, not reinvent the wheel. warrior calls very much a broker to identify those resources that we could do warm handoffs with these veterans who are struggling. >> from wisconsin, this is our wine for others. we will hear from dennis. >> hi, this is dennis from wisconsin. >> hi dennis, good morning. >> good morning, sir, i would like to bring up the aspects of things being used for tv i. in 72 i was in a car accident at the age of 14 and my dad was in the military. i was in the military hospital and they installed these m k ultra cochlear implants that send messages over negative decibels, i was not fully apprised of it until 1990 when one of the wires decided to exit from inside of my mouth while i was driving. the aspect is there is a technological aspect, there is a natural aspect. i have had brain injuries then and since then and i have been able to recover. one way was learning a different language. learning latin alongside the king james persian helped a lot with getting those gray areas that the pharmaceuticals loves to map out. just help rewire the brain by learning another language. >> dennis, thank you for your input this morning. to his point, outside of medication there are other ways to deal with this. counseling and things like that. can you expand? >> yes, that goes back to the holistic approach, we have to listen to these folks. that is the number one task. listen to them and understand their challenges. instead of trying to put a round peg into a round hole and i have a cookie cutter approach. there is no silver bullet out there to use and analogy. it is understanding the appropriate options. with the understanding that that may not work and you may have to use a holistic approach. we have a approach. the government has to change some lifestyle issues. especially if they are drinking too much or are engaged in other activities that are not contributing to the work with them. they will prove their conditions. if you can do this by ten or 15% i will be grateful, we are looking at this in increments. certainly and all of their problems, really a journey. thinking about the future like making a call to a veteran, taking a call from a veteran, and having that honest conversation feels the union down to the core to appropriately assist. >> i go back to the research, the research is actually going to help us understand what is working and what is not working. right now we have this dynamic tension with folks in the research community or in some of our government bureaucracies. the research does not support that treatment. i got that, possibly the research has not been done to a level that is satisfactory to confirm or deny. but if i have a group of veterans coming out and saying this is helping me, this has gone me to a better place, this has pulled me back from the edge of darkness where i was putting a gun in my mouth. there has to be value, we have to listen to that as well. it is like a railroad track. one track we are trying to push the research, the other track we are doing veterans right now who are in distress. >> by the way, audience, veteran affairs does offer several areas of support, for the crisis line it is one 800 273 80 2:55. you can text 838255 for support or go to their website. let's go to rickie in texas, i last call,, ricky go ahead, please. >> good morning, thank you for being here today. i am calling because i am a vietnam era veteran and i believe that sometimes they're ignoring us because it has been a while since we were in the service. the process is one of the things that i believe really contributes to a lot of the suicidal thoughts and everything, because you go in and try to tell people what is going on with you, they get the diagnosis completely wrong. the research is not lining up with what is going on with our body. as for african american veterans i am finding that we are not really being taken care of, especially through the process. do you have anything that can help us out with different thoughts or directions about the process? that is very disheartening, to go and try and get some help, do this process, and because that is the only way we are going to get some help is through that process. it is hurting so many of us who have been in the service earlier and we are not being addressed. thank, you thank you guys for having me. >> ricky in texas, thank you. >> so, rick, i am not familiar with the sea mp process. i would have to look that up. i will, on your behalf, contact the folks i know at veterans affair to become a little smarter on that and see if that is a barrier to you all getting help. i do not know but we cannot forget our vietnam and gulf war and korean veterans, even have a number of world war ii veterans still alive. they are all part of this calculus. it is not just a war on terror veterans we are talking about. the other thing i would make clear is that we have to help the veterans administration and the defense health agencies succeed. this is not about constantly putting a stick in their chest, criticizing them, their big bureaucracies and it is slow to turn that ship. with good science, with constant pressure and advocacy from the vso and others we can get to a better place. we have seen improvements and they va since this is become an issue and the last ten years. has it moved as fast as we wanted it to? no. but we just have to keep going in the right direction. >> this is frank clark in with the organization troops first foundation and the care of warrior call. on this memorial day, mr. locke, and thank you for joining us. >> i want to say thank you to all of our veterans, their families, and certainly for those who are still around their sacrifice for this nation. that is what this day is all about. >> thank you. >> live now to a senate judiciary committee. they are meeting now to examine live extremist threats on a buffalo new york supermarket that killed ten african americans. with the justice department is investigating as a hate crime. we expect this to get underway momentarily. live coverage on c-span, three. 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