Suicide was the 12th leading cause of death for veterans in 2022, the last year for which data is available, according to an annual report on veteran suicide from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The report states that there were 6,407 veteran suicide deaths in the country in 2022, an increase from 2021. In Kentucky, there were 101 veteran suicide deaths in 2022, and the rate of suicide among Kentucky veterans, at 37.5 per 100,000 people, is higher than the rate in the general population, 22.6 per 100,000 people.
Many veterans struggle to return to normal life after leaving the service, an experience that can leave them feeling isolated, said Doug Witt, an Army vet and peer support specialist at NorthKey Community Care. What’s more, veterans, due to their military training, often feel compelled to sacrifice their own well-being for others.
“A lot of veterans take that same mindset out when they get out. You know, put country first,” Witt said. “Another veteran might need help more than me, so I’ll put him first.”
Witt said that stigma around veterans’ mental health has improved over the years, but there are still gaps in service. Veterans who need mental health support in Northern Kentucky have some options.
There are government programs like health centers operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs, but access to them can be difficult. The process for getting claims, including mental health claims, covered by the VA can be onerous: It requires filing a claim with an accredited veteran service officer. A medical professional then has to independently verify a veteran’s diagnosis and usually connect it in some way to military service before a vet can receive benefits.
Although there is a VA health center in Florence, it lacked a dedicated veteran service officer at the time LINK nky wrote this article. The closest place to file a claim directly with the VA is in Cincinnati. The average number of days it took for the VA to reach a decision on a disability claim in January was 146.4 days – nearly five months – according to the VA’s website.
As a result, private sector and legacy service organizations, such as the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars, are left to pick up the slack.
Witt, for instance, is part of a group called the Northern Kentucky Service Members, Veterans and Families Suicide Prevention Coalition, a partnership of local service organizations aimed at raising awareness around veteran suicide. He also works with a lot of veterans in his role as a peer counselor. He pointed to DAV, whose national headquarters is in Erlanger and which offers free walk-in help for veterans, as one effective service organization in the region.
DAV, as well as branches of service organizations like the American Legion and the VFW, sometimes have accredited veteran service officers in-house, but the process can still be inaccessible for many, especially when coupled with veterans’ tendency to play down their own struggles. Moreover, VA health centers often have long patient backlogs, so getting services quickly isn’t always possible.
Danny Vickers, quartermaster for VFW Post 6095, advocated for more walk-in services at VA health care centers.
“I believe they should have a provider or two that just sees walk-ins,” he said. “You’re sick, go to the VA in Florence, and you might have to wait, wait some time, but, you know, you’ve got to wait your turn. It would be better than waiting months.”
‘Always here for them’
Institutional problems aside, many of the service organizations that LINK contacted spoke to the importance of cultivating community among veterans.
“We always want to be there for them,” said American Legion Post 203 Commander Chuck Wills. “We invite them if we see an issue that we think we should get involved with. We’re very aggressive with it. We’ll try to bring them in. We’ll talk to them, see what their situations are, and basically tell them that we’re always here to help them.”
One of the American Legion’s flagship programs is called Be The One, which, like some of the other organizations mentioned here, aims to prevent veteran suicide by conducting fundraisers and providing training. It also provides what are called Buddy Checks, wherein legion members reach out to vets to see if they can get them connected to services.
“Buddy Check system is where we just call if we haven’t seen one of our friends for a long time, or we know that someone’s going through some issues, then we call them and see how they’re doing, asking if we can do anything to make life easier for them, and things like that,” Wills said. “We just contact them [and] let them know that we’re always here for them.”
Witt said that another service gap in the region relates to veterans and homelessness.
“Their mental health diagnosis might be the very thing that’s inhibiting them from getting any help,” Witt said. “A lot of the homeless, they’re faceless; they’re invisible. People don’t really see them until places like NorthKey or the VA – the homeless services they offer – are able to engage, but there’s not enough workers, there’s not enough people to help all the people that need help.”
Rusty Mardis, an Air Force vet who heads up NKU’s Veterans Resource Station was not optimistic about the services in the region. He advocated for a kind of one-stop shop for veterans, a single place where they could get connected to whatever service they might need, ideally right after vets leave the service and before early problems can get worse.
“If they came in, they’re homeless, they got homeless specialists [at the one-stop shop],” Mardis said. “If [they need] housing, they got housing specialists there. They need to get in touch with the VA, they got the VA sitting there. Mental health capability is also a big one, obviously. Substance abuse is another one. But just to help them at the early stages upstream, to help them transition properly, to help eliminate all those things that can happen downstream.”
Check out information on some of the veterans’ organizations in the chart. If you’re a veteran and you need immediate mental health assistance, call 988, then choose the first option 24/7 to speak with a crisis counselor.
If you’re aware of a veterans organization in Northern Kentucky we missed, send us an email at news@linknky.com.