releases: https://www.donnelly.senate.gov/newsroom/article/donnelly-seeks-to-end-the-tragedy
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://www.donnelly.senate.gov/newsroom/article/donnelly-seeks-to-end-the-tragedy | Donnelly Seeks to 'End the Tragedy' | 2014-12-11 | 2014 | 2014-12 | Democrat | House | IN | Joe Donnelly | D000607 | www.donnelly.senate.gov | legacy | Donnelly Seeks to 'End the Tragedy' His legislation aimed at military suicides set for Senate vote By: Brian Francisco Thursday, December 11, 2014 WASHINGTON – More U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen are being lost to suicide than to combat, U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly said Wednesday. During 2013, he said, 475 members of the military took their lives, compared with 132 killed in battle. “That’s happened two years straight now,” Donnelly, D-Ind., said at a Capitol Hill news conference, adding that 2014 has followed a similar pace. “We have to break the chain. We have to end the tragedy,” he said. Donnelly, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has sponsored legislation requiring yearly mental health assessments for all active, National Guard and Reserve members of the military. His proposal is incorporated into the defense bill that comes before the Senate for a vote today or Friday. The House approved the bill last week. Donnelly’s measure, called the Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Prevention Act, is named for an east-central Indiana soldier who, at age 21, fatally shot himself in 2009 in a Muncie movie theater while on leave from his deployment to Afghanistan. Military suicides “also happen to young men and women who have never been overseas, who have never been deployed,” Donnelly said. “And so this is a servicewide problem.” Currently, he said, mental health screenings are required only for troops on a deployment cycle. His legislation includes provisions to safeguard the privacy of personnel who seek and receive mental health treatment, and it calls for the Pentagon to evaluate and report on its mental health practices. Pete Duffy, legislative director of the National Guard Association of the United States, said the Guard had the highest suicide rate among military branches in 2013 – 33.4 suicides for every 100,000 troops. Sexton was a Guard member from Farmland in Randolph County. By comparison, the national suicide rate in 2012 was roughly 13 deaths for every 100,000 people, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which has endorsed Donnelly’s legislation. “We’re going to have the assessments. Now we need to have funded programs to address mental health concerns when they are discovered in the assessments,” said Duffy, a retired Army colonel. “The tragedy to Jacob, Jacob’s family, the losing (military) unit, the loss of readiness cannot continue.” Members of advocacy groups for suicide prevention, mental health, military families and family therapy also spoke in favor of Donnelly’s bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. Donnelly said he can’t tell how his legislation, if signed into law, might affect recruitment and re-enlistment. “But I will tell you that if I were in the service at this time and knew that I had the option to have somebody to talk to and it wouldn’t be stigmatized, that seeking help would actually be considered a strength, I would think that would be a plus for continuing (military) service,” he said. Earlier, Donnelly said the assessments also might uncover mental health problems that can lead military personnel to cause harm to others. “This can help in case after case after case, not only suicide but also for those who are facing challenges – that they have somebody to talk to and maybe prevent them from taking it out on somebody else,” he said. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |