I’m an Army veteran and we need more than Thank you, we need your help.
This week our country will celebrate Veterans Day. For many Veterans it's a day of silence instead of celebration. Because the reality of what many Veterans experience doesn’t fit or match the narrative America creates in Blockbuster films or military recruitment billboards or ads. The disconnect between what civilians think military service entails and what many veterans experience is a mile long. Because to tell the truth is uncomfortable for both soldiers and those who support them. Truth be told “Thank you” isn’t what will interrupt the rising Veteran suicide rates or provide help for those struggling alone with mental health.
But I do believe we can help. We can take action this Veterans Day by doing three things: facing the truth, creating community connections and giving access to their own story.
So how do we do that?
Support Veterans by donating a Waging Peace Bookclub-in-A-Bag that offers a story of healing after combat and how to find your place in a community after coming home from war. Putting a story told by a Veteran about the hard-to-talk about experience of going to war and wrestling with coming home in arms reach on the bookshelf of local and rural libraries.
Because I believe disconnection and despair are killing us. If we don’t know the current story veterans are living through we can’t change it. As an Army Veteran here’s a few truths I wish you knew:
Suicide rates are at an all time high, even though combat is decreasing as our forever wars have ended. In 2021, research found that 30,177 active duty personnel and veterans who served in the military after 9/11 have died by suicide - compared to the 7,057 service members killed in combat in those same 20 years. That is, military suicide rates are four times higher than deaths that occurred during military operations.
Military Sexual Trauma which is rape, assault or harrasment is experienced by 55% of female veterans and 38% of men have experienced this in the military. There are more male Veterans than there are female Veterans. So, even though military sexual trauma is more common in women Veterans, over half of all Veterans with military sexual trauma are men. MST is a major contributor to PTSD.
2/3rds of veterans who committed suicide were not connected to the Veterans Affairs.
Rural States carry the highest burden of Military service. Alaska, Montana, Virginia, Wyoming, and Maine have the highest percentage of Veterans serving per population.Rural living can be isolating, especially if you’ve experienced something that makes you different from those in your community.
If reading these statistics is uncomfortable for you, can you imagine how uncomfortable it is for Veterans living them or trying to talk about them?
Simply put, more than being thanked this veterans day, I want more Veterans to stay alive this year. I want to interrupt the rising suicide rates, and launch a preemptive strike at the isolation and despair that is following Veterans home to rural areas. I refuse to allow one more unspoken hard story to leave a Veteran feeling disconnected from their community or alone. And I believe we can do it.
Do you want to Combat the rising rates of Veteran Suicides? Build a bridge of hope and connection to Veterans in Rural places? Honor Veterans Day by working for Peace?
Give Veterans a story that they can relate to that creates healing and hope by centering their hard-to-talk-about experiences.
Connection is the antidote to despair.
Help Veterans connect to those in their community by giving them a book that starts the conversation they are aching to have and brings others into what it’s like to go to war, to come back home and wrestle with how to figure out what you think and who you are after.
Here’s the Power of Books
They teach us how to relate to others and help us reckon with our own story by putting words to an uncommon or painful experience.
They start conversations and build unlikely connections and relationships through the shared experience of reading a book together.
They help us imagine who we want to be and what a world of Peace could look like.
Bring a story of hope and healing after combat to rural veterans and those who live in the 5 states with the highest rate of veterans in their population: Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Virginia and Maine. 2/3rds of Veterans who committed suicide were not connected to the VA, thats not by accident. If the military is where you were harmed it’s probably not the place you will go for help or healing. But our communities are where we can reach Veterans. It means we need to go to them. Meet them where they are at.
Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, a leading voice on trauma tells us this,
“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”
Let's create more safe connections by making sure there is access to a book that tells their story.
Representation Matters.
Reading a story that is relatable instead of a Hollywood blockbuster creates shared connection while centering the rarely talked about and uncommon experience that Veterans live through.
It’s not just a bag of books, it's an opportunity for a Veteran to build a bridge to safe connections with people in their home community. It’s throwing out a life raft for a Veteran who needs to hear their own story but doesn’t have the words to tell it.
Maybe it is just a book, or maybe it might just save a life.