When I left the Air Force in 2019, I thought the hardest battles for our military veterans were behind us.
I was wrong. Veteran suicide remains a national crisis. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, we lose between 17 and 20 veterans to suicide every day. This number is over 50 percent higher than that of non-veteran adults in the general U.S. population.
The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, signed in 2015, gave me hope. It was a landmark effort to address the alarming rate of veteran suicides. Central to the act was the establishment of a peer support program within the VA, designed to connect veterans with trained peers who could offer empathy, shared experience, and practical guidance. It promised to connect veterans with folks who’d walked the same path— fellow brothers and sisters in arms who also had the nightmares, the guilt, and the struggle to fit back into civilian life. Peer support is a lifeline. It’s a fellow vet who’s been to hell and back, who can look you in the eye and say, “I know, man, but you’re not alone.”
