Every 18 hours an active duty American soldier commits suicide. Every 84 minutes, an American veteran commits suicide. Yet -- the Veteran's Affairs "Veteran's Crisis Line" has a wait time of 75 minutes and 75% of all calls go unanswered. US soldiers are in dire need of counseling services, yet the VA still stalls on hiring the fifteen hundred mental health professionals as ordered by President Obama.
It is shocking to learn about the state of our veteran's mental health and the shameful way we as a country are neglecting them. It is very troubling to me to know that our veterans are being neglected – not getting the help they need because the VA has yet to hire additional licensed counselors.
We are losing our veterans to suicide at a rate of almost one per hour. This is unacceptable.