BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas — On Thursday, the Brazos Valley Coalition on Suicide Prevention held a virtual forum with local Vietnam veterans to discuss and get feedback on how they deal with their mental health struggles.
“Keep in mind they ended the Vietnam war for themselves in 1970, 1971 they were already out of the war but to this day, that’s been 50 years later, they're still struggling with some mental health issues and post traumatic stress,” explained BVCOSP President, Douglas Vance.
Over the past two decades, the veteran population has decreased by almost 25%. In that same timespan, the non-veteran U.S. population has also increased by 27%.
“Numbers vary a little bit but its around 22 veterans per day that take their lives," noted Vance when discussing veteran-related statistics. "I just saw a recent study that said it might be more like 44--like double that, because suicides are underreported for all populations for a lot of reasons, stigma reasons, et cetera, but its a lot. In fact, as of now we have lost more veterans to suicide in America than we lost in war during the entire Vietnam conflict.”
With the context of these statistics, it's important to pay attention to suicide rates in our veteran community.
“It's important we let veterans know that it doesn't matter who you are, how strong you are, and how brave you are, because they’re all strong and brave we’re so thankful for their service you still can suffer from post traumatic stress because you see and witness things that human beings shouldn’t have to see and witness,” said Vance.