Veterans are Crying Out for Help! President Obama, Stop Our Veterans from Taking Their Own Lives

Right now, as suicide rates within the military are at a record high and climbing; our Veterans and the Health Providers who serve them are crying out Nationally for help. I am a Veteran who has served the United States of America proudly as member of the Armed Forces. I have spent the past 5 years of my life, working directly with Military Service Members and their families who are dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and other devastating mental health issues. I cared for these Service Members as the National Director of Psychological Health overseeing the National Psychological Healthcare Program which was implemented for the NGB by a Minority-Owned, Service Disabled Veteran Owned (SDVO) Small Business in 2010. After providing these vital services to the National Guard Bureau for nearly 3 years, my organization has been singled out by the National Guard due to racial discrimination and the intent on the part of a few corrupt individuals and Government Contracting Officials to defraud the Government and Taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

As the National Director of Psychological Health I helped to develop the NGB Psychological Support Pilot Program, which was reported as a huge success by the Defense Center of Excellence (DCoE), and in 2013 was expanded from a $17 million to a $200 million dollar contract encompassing several military branches. Today, that program lies in total ruin. Vital positions are not being filled due to low salaries, existing Healthcare Providers are walking off the job due to poor working conditions, training of new staff is non-existent, cases have been outright dropped resulting in preventable suicides, and current Wing Directors of Psychological Health (WDPHs) on the contract are expressing their beliefs that the program is now “doomed”.

My organization has petitioned assistance from Gen. Frank Grass, Chief of the National Guard Bureau to no avail. We are also currently awaiting a decision from Judge Damich in the Court of Federal Claims. However due to the sequestration, the Courts have expressed that they are ‘stretched thin’ and do not have the resources necessary to handle their current case loads. In the Senate, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Contracting and Oversight is currently conducting a thorough investigation of this contract and the individual awardee(s). In the meantime, however; suicides continue to occur at a record high rate of 22 per day, which is 1 suicide every 65 minutes! How many of our Men and Women in Uniform have to lose their lives before someone steps up and rights these wrongs? What will it take? Right now, suicides outweigh combat deaths 25-to-1.

I, as a Veteran, am being forced to watch this absolutely critical National Mental Health Program be destroyed as my other Veteran brethren are taking their own lives by the hour! Congress has set aside money solely for the care of our Service Members, and those taxpayer dollars are being wasted and outright stolen by these corrupted officials who are placing profit, greed and racism above the lives of the Service Members they are obligated to protect above all else. In retaliation for my organization’s efforts to bring this horrible injustice to public knowledge, the National Guard Bureau has refused to pay invoices totaling over $4 million for the Psychological Support Services that we have already provided. This has created financial hardships on all of the Health Care Providers who built this program, and also has all but destroyed the very organization that created it and worked so very hard to save so many lives. I have had to personally sell treasured family heirlooms that I planned to pass down to my children, just to feed my children during this difficult time of retaliation and hatred. When I chose to serve in the Armed Forces, when I swore my solemn oath; I never assumed I would eventually be treated so unfairly or with such blatant disregard by any U.S. military branch. I have dedicated the majority of my professional career in mental health to assisting Veterans whose lives were in dire need. I am calling on you now, Mr. President – and you, America - to do the same.