Sergeant William Davidson had been struggling with mental health problems since his deployment to Afghanistan. When he didn\u2019t attend at least one of his Connecticut National Guard drill weekends, the Guard declared him AWOL (absent without leave) and discharged him with a \u201cbad paper\u201d separation. Four months after his discharge, Davidson, 24, fatally shot himself.<\/p>\n\n\n
Davidson, who had two younger sisters, is one among thousands of veterans who die by suicide each year. Despite national goals to prevent veteran suicides, they occur at disproportionately higher rates than in the general population.<\/p>\n\n\n
More than 78,000 veterans died by suicide between 2005 and 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)<\/a>. Veteran suicide deaths rose from 5,787 in 2005 to 6,139 in 2017. In the active military, the National Guard, with a suicide rate of 30.6 per 100,000, has the highest rate of any branch, according to the most recent Department of Defense Annual Suicide Report.<\/a> The overall rate among all active military components was 24.8. This is occurring against a backdrop of rising suicides among all Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cThe numbers don\u2019t do anything but grow,\u201d said Davidson\u2019s mother, Donna Chapman of Suffield. \u201cWe\u2019re continuing to fail. I\u2019m sick of it. Everyone\u2019s sick of it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted a survey of 5,412 people between June 24 and 30 and the collected data on suicides is alarming. The amount of Americans reporting anxiety symptoms is triple the number of this time last year, reported<\/a> Forbes. According to the CDC, 19% of Hispanics-Latinos reported suicidal ideation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n Serving in the Guard is unlike other military service. Guard members don\u2019t live on bases. Most are part-time, typically attending monthly weekend drills and two weeks of training in the summer, leaving them isolated from military leaders and empathetic peers.<\/p>\n\n\n In the last year, the National Guard has stepped up suicide prevention and wellness efforts. The goal is to get ahead of the suicide problem by providing support long before people get suicide ideations, officials said. It awarded the Connecticut Guard $225,500 for a program designed to mitigate behaviors that increase suicide risk and for conferences on suicide prevention and military culture for community clinicians and counselors who work with the Guard through the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n Last year, the VA\u2019s Vet Centers agreed to provide counseling and referral services at Guard drill weekends, including for Guard families and veterans. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented many in-person meetings. Under the arrangement, if veterans don\u2019t meet eligibility requirements for continuous VA health care, counselors \u201cwill make every effort\u201d to connect them to other resources. Guard veterans who have not been federally activated for service in places like Iraq aren\u2019t eligible for VA health care.<\/p>\n\n\n In Connecticut, active Guard members have had access to counselors from Vet Centers and from the state mental health department for years, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jolene Montalvo, of Middletown, was a full-time Connecticut National Guard<\/a> member. She attempted suicide twice in 2013, a year after she retired. The first time, she called a friend to say goodbye. The friend contacted 911, saving Montalvo\u2019s life. The next time, Montalvo was discreet and walked to a cemetery to overdose on vodka and pills. After about 18 hours, state police found her \u201cin pretty bad condition,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n Montalvo, who was born on the Groton Submarine Base, said that after serving in Iraq, she suffered from anxiety, depression, insomnia and bipolar disorder, and began drinking heavily. The transition home to motherhood and her Guard job as a recruiter was a \u201cculture shock\u201d after the constant noise from mortars in Iraq and continuous worry about the safety of people in her command. \u201cI was having a really hard time with reintegration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n She retired in 2012, but a miscalculation put her retirement date two days short of a 20-year career and retirement pay. \u201cI was in no state of mind to be representing myself during that time,\u201d she said. She is now appealing the date with help from the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n Montalvo, 45, receives counseling and medical care through a VA program that helps patients live independently. She said her counselor \u201chas saved my life many times. I love this woman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n In Connecticut, from 2015 to 2019, VA suicide prevention coordinators helped more than 2,500 veterans or families of veterans who sought assistance from the national Veterans Crisis Line, according to Jessica Loss, a coordinator. She said emergency responders rescued 345 veterans from taking their own lives, adding that 716 callers reported a history of suicide attempts, and 746 reported suicidal thoughts. Her team helped train some local police about veterans with mental health problems.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is equipping veterans, families and communities with tools to identify signs of suicide,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n In a survey taken last December and January of members of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA<\/a>), 44% reported suicide ideation since joining the military, and 62% said they know a veteran who has died by suicide, a 22% increase since 2014. Thomas Porter, an IAVA executive vice president, called that increase \u201creally shocking\u201d and \u201chuge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n In June, the Trump administration issued a veterans\u2019 suicide prevention plan designed to raise public awareness, encourage safe firearms storage, identify effective research and increase federal coordination with community mental health providers. About 70% of veterans who die by suicide use firearms, according to the VA.<\/p>\n\n\n Proposals in Congress to address veteran suicide include grants to community organizations that treat veterans; automatic one-year eligibility for VA health care; and training in suicide prevention and military culture for community providers that contract with the VA.<\/p>\n\n\n Chapman, Davidson\u2019s mother, said Guard leadership missed \u201cred flags\u201d that pointed to her son\u2019s problems. In 2016, Davidson appealed his less than honorable discharge status and requested a medical discharge with full benefits. The VA had diagnosed him with combat-related post-traumatic stress. The appeal was denied, but he never knew. The Army Board for Corrections of Military Records issued an advisory decision in May, 2017, four months after his death the previous January. His mother received the final decision last December.<\/p>\n\n\n Chapman has made the prevention of veterans\u2019 suicide her mission. She is raising money to build a veterans\u2019 retreat center in her son\u2019s honor and does public speaking about veteran suicide. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost so many this way. It\u2019s unacceptable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n (Cover photo: Donna Chapman gives her son, Sergeant William Davidson a kiss. Davidson struggled with mental health disorders after his deployment in Afghanistan and killed himself in 2017.)<\/p>\n\n\n Publisher\u2019s Note: CTLN<\/a> and c-hit.org<\/a> collaborate to best serve the Connecticut Hispanic, Latino community.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Suicide is a public health concern in the U.S., particularly among Hispanics-Latinos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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