{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.donnelly.senate.gov/newsroom/article/winning-the-peace", "Winning the Peace", "2014-12-16", "2014", "2014-12", "Democrat", "House", "IN", "Joe Donnelly", "D000607", "www.donnelly.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "The suicides of servicemen and servicewomen are just as tragic as the deaths on the uncertain battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.\u00a0And as those conflicts have wound down, the suicide rates have remained high.\r\nInstead of collateral damage, they have become the main event: In 2013, 132 soldiers and Marines died in war; 475 took their own lives.\r\nIndiana Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly has been in the forefront of those fighting to draw attention to military suicide and prevent those pointless deaths. Now The Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Act of 2014, a\u00a0second version of\u00a0legislation Donnelly\u00a0first introduced last year, is on its way to becoming law.\r\n\u201dIt\u2019s been a two-year journey for the senator,\u201d said Elizabeth Shappell, Donnelly\u2019s communications director. \u201cWe\u2019re so excited to put out the good news.\u201d But as Shappell emphasized, the bill Congress\u00a0passed\u00a0last week is just a beginning.\r\nThe bill is named for a 21-year-old Indiana National Guardsman from Farmland, a small town near Muncie, who shot himself to death in a movie theater while he was home on leave in 2009. Sexton\u2019s family saw no signs of distress in Jacob before the tragedy, but his father, Jeff, said they later learned that others in his unit had seen some problems.\r\nOften, those in the military have been reluctant to speak about problems, and their comrades have avoided flagging\u00a0potentially suicidal behavior because of the stigma that mental health problems can carry.\r\nDonnelly, who plans a ceremony with the family in Indianapolis later this week, wrote the bill to make it easier for soldiers\u00a0with problems to be identified and to receive help.\r\nThe measure will require that every active-duty and reserve serviceman and servicewoman receive a mental health assessment every year. It sets strict privacy protections, so that military personnel who need help can seek and receive it without potentially derailing their careers. And the act directs the Pentagon to assess all the mental health and suicide-prevention programs now operating with the military and report to Congress within a year.\r\n\u201c(Donnelly) wants to test what\u2019s working, what\u2019s not, what sort of programs should be expanded,\u201d Shappell said. \u00a0\r\nDonnelly also wants to take on the catastrophic problem of suicides by military veterans. More than 20 vets kill themselves every day. It\u2019s a problem that may not get better without better solutions.\u00a0\r\nThe Sexton Act seemed to be on its way to passage after Donnelly managed to get it tied into the Defense Appropriations Act for the coming year. \u00a0Even the current do-little Congress would not fail to pass that measure, though\u00a0Donnelly still had to shepherd\u00a0his act\u00a0through final\u00a0defense-spending negotiations between the House and Senate this month.\r\nThe Clay Hunt Act, named for a 28-year-old Marine veteran from Houston who killed himself in 2011, may not fare as well. That act would help veterans get access to mental health services and require military agencies to assess the effectiveness of their programs for veterans. It passed the House, but it has been held back from a Senate vote because one senator objected to its $22 million pricetag.\u00a0\r\nCongress, which customarily has no problems voting billions of dollars for war, needs to spend more of its time as Donnelly has, trying to see that our psychologically wounded warriors get the help they need. This is a battle that will not end when the last soldier leaves Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Syria. The veterans of our post-9/11 wars will be with us until near the end of this century, and they have earned not only our\u00a0respect and gratitude, but the right to regain their psychological health.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.donnelly.senate.gov/newsroom/article/winning-the-peace"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4100749976933002, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}