Troubled vets need help sooner, lawmakers told

[unhappycamper]

Troubled vets need help sooner, lawmakers told
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jul 14, 2010 18:04:51 EDT

Even as Veterans Affairs Department officials offered testimony that 10,000 people have been saved by VA’s suicide hotline, veterans themselves said help should come long before a person needs to make that call.

“The suicide hotline is too much of a last alternative,” said Melvin Cintron, an Army veteran who served as a flight medic in Desert Storm and in aviation maintenance in the current war in Iraq. “Either you don’t have enough of a problem and you can wait for weeks for an appointment, or you have to be suicidal.”

~snip~

For many veterans, Cintron said that label — “suicidal” — also deters veterans from seeking help because they know that to get immediate help, they have to say they’re contemplating suicide.

But the stigma associated with that declaration can affect work and family life.

Of 30,000 suicides in the U.S. in 2009, 20 percent were veterans, said Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz, the subcommittee chairman.

[w8liftinglady]

1. and the help they need is one-on-one and group therapy...not more drugs!!

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/33826/

[Solly Mack]

2. k/r