David Roe: “Transformation is never easy, especially for an organization as large and complex as VA.”

The members here have heard me say this many times, in the Guard in Tennessee we have a program called Guard Your Buddy, which has been shown to reduce suicide by almost 70 percent.

Suicide is a national tragedy. It is not just the VA; it is a national tragedy for us.

I want to give the VA a shout-out and there are some--obviously, we are going over some problems today that the VA had, but all in all I think the VA probably has the opportunity to be one of the best systems in the country.

the crisis of veteran suicide is not new, but our solutions must be, and that is why I introduced the Veterans' Acute Crisis Care for Emergent Suicide Symptoms Act, or Veterans' ACCESS Act, that will mandate VA cover the costs of emergency…