Political Quotes

“I have come to the floor today to introduce a piece of legislation that I feel is timely and critically necessary, the Department of Defense Suicide Tracking Act of 2014. As our Nation winds down involvement in the longest war in our history, it is incumbent on all of us to ensure that the men and women who have carried the burden of combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world, as well as their family members, are taken care of to the fullest extent possible. That means we must address the tragic suicide epidemic in our military. While the services have focused on this problem for years, there still appears to be significant gaps, especially in reserve component and dependent tracking and analysis. This is a complex issue with no obvious solutions, but I intend to work with my colleagues in the Senate to develop comprehensive, meaningful ways to address this problem. The DoD recently released its 2012 DoD Suicide Event Report, which concluded that there were a total of 319 active component suicides and 203 reserve component suicides in 2012. That equates to 22.7 and 24.2 for every 100,000 service members, respectively. Additionally, there were a total of 841 attempted suicides in 2012. While preliminary data suggests that 2013 had an 18 percent drop in suicides, this is still a significant and tragic problem in the military that we need to tackle head-on.…”