VA chief addresses veteran suicides

Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake conceded Wednesday that the agency must do more to reach out to Guard and Reserve troops who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan about the mental health help available to them.

Peake made the comment during a Capitol Hill hearing in response to a question from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who expressed concern about VA research that found more than half of all veterans who committed suicide after returning from the recent wars were members of the National Guard or Reserves.

Findings of the research, which examined suicides among those who had been discharged from the military, was first reported Tuesday by The Associated Press.

"I know members of our Guard and Reserves oftentimes don't think of themselves as veterans, they see themselves as going back to their same jobs; they sort of disassociate themselves with the VA system," said Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs committee.

Peake said the VA has been working with the military to educate Guard and Reserve troops about VA services when they are brought in for a reassessment for mental or physical problems about three months after they return from war. He said the VA also sends them a letter, but he acknowledged that it "sometimes winds up in file 13."

The VA secretary said he would like to see more outreach — possibly by telephone — to the veterans as well as better education of the veterans' family members about how to recognize and respond to mental health problems.

"It is the family that will notice something different," said Peake, who recently took over the agency amid criticism that the VA was not doing enough to meet the growing needs of war veterans.

A Department of Veterans Affairs analysis of ongoing research of deaths among veterans of both wars found that Guard or Reserve members accounted for 53 percent of the 144 veteran suicides from 2001 — when the war in Afghanistan began — through the end of 2005.

At certain points in the Iraq war, members of the Guard and Reserve made up nearly half the troops fighting in Iraq. Overall, they accounted for nearly 28 percent of all U.S. military forces deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan or in support of the operations, according to Defense Department data through the end of 2007.

Among the total population of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have been discharged from the military, nearly half are formerly regular military and a little more than half were in the Guard and Reserves, the VA says.

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The toll-free Veterans Affairs Department suicide hot line number is 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

On the Net:

Veterans Affairs Department: http://www.va.gov/

Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs: http://www.senate.gov/svac