Suicide Prevention Month
Floor Speech
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Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), my good friend, for yielding. She and I have the pleasure of serving on the House Financial Services Committee together and cooperating on many legislative measures and regulatory measures that benefit our economy, so I thank her for that work. I greatly appreciate her stepping up and reaching out across the aisle on the subject of suicide, particularly during Suicide Prevention Month, and letting all of us have an opportunity to share our perspective on this national tragedy.
Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. There is an average of 123 suicides per day. What could be more tragic than that?
Yet, I don't see nearly the people on the floor tonight that there should be, because this affects all our districts so tragically. One in five are suffering with some form of mental illness in our country, a problem that has disrupted so many families, caused too much violence and pain, and caused far too many lives. Representative Sinema and I talk about this every time the subject comes up.
When I was a high school senior, I can't remember a friend that was a victim of suicide. But, Mr. Speaker, my kids just turned 19 and 21, and within 4 or 5 years of their ages, I can think of six families who have lost a child to suicide--different reasons, same tragedy. So our families are hurting from the scourge of suicide.
In Congress, this is an area where we work together, the 21st Century Cures Act, where we attacked the first comprehensive approach to mental illness treatment in decades, where we say we want people with mental illness and who need treatment to get it. We worked together most recently on the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Act for American veterans, and the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act--small steps, but concrete steps that call attention to suicide, particularly in our veterans community.
The VA is helping on this issue and marked Suicide Prevention Month with its Be There campaign. This campaign highlights the risk factors and warning signs for suicide, provides information about VA mental health and suicide prevention resources, and helps individuals and organizations start the conversation around veteran mental health in their communities.
Our VA employees must have the necessary resources to offer guidance to veterans while providing essential suicide prevention services.
This is a together thing. This is an ``all of us in this together'' thing.
Mr. Speaker, I have a chair in my front office in my district office in Little Rock that was hand-painted to raise money for suicide awareness and suicide prevention. On that chair, it says: ``We Are The 22.'' This is a nonprofit organization in my community started by veterans helping veterans, because it is not an ``us and they'' thing. It is an ``us'' thing. It is a ``we'' thing.
We are all in this together. We are the 22, the number that we have as the estimate of veterans who are taking their own lives.
So I want to echo the Speaker pro tempore this afternoon, a distinguished American and distinguished veteran and brave, heroic representative of our Armed Forces, our patriots, the people who defend our liberties, when he said we don't leave people behind. We don't leave a sailor, a marine, or a soldier on the battlefield. We bring them home.
Just last week, we honored John McCain on the floor of this House. And Sam Johnson, leaving the House this year--Representative Schweikert was there--he was in the Hanoi Hilton with John McCain. We don't leave a man or woman behind on the battlefield. But when they come home, we equally should not leave them behind.
I really commend the Speaker's comments that the mission is not over. All of us have that partnership and sense of duty to carry that mission forward on the home front when we are out of harm's way and out of theater.
To me, it is that buddy system that we all learn, whether it is in boot camp or swim team, you team up; you check in on each other; you don't leave people alone. That is the secret, I think, to preventing suicide.
I lost a good friend of mine, a fraternity brother, a partner in a law firm in Houston, Texas. He never once intimated to his wife, to his children, or to his law partners that anything was wrong, and they got the call that he had been found.
Check in: How are you doing?
So we are the 22. We are on the buddy system. We don't leave our warriors behind. The mission continues here. All those things are true.
I carry in my wallet, Mr. Speaker, the veterans crisis hotline as a reminder to me that we want our veterans to reach out if there is a moment of crisis.
If somebody is watching this or hearing the words of brave Brian Mast, or the emotional content and leadership of Representative Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona, and you are having that moment now as a veteran, I urge you to call 1-800-273-8255 for yourself, for a friend, for a neighbor.
We, in Congress, are fighting to make sure that that veterans hotline is a value, that it is answered, and that we are part of that thin thread of connectivity between all of us that keeps us right on the moment.
Mr. Speaker, I see my friend from Arizona is here. It was a pleasure to have both of my friends from Arizona talk about their senior Senator last week, John McCain, and what he meant to each of us and what he has meant to our country.
Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), my friend, now on the House Ways and Means Committee, formerly of the best committee in the House, the House Financial Services Committee.
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Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for participating, and I thank his colleague, Representative Sinema, for her heartfelt tribute that she has carried on since she has been in the House to bring attention to suicide prevention.
I also commend the House for the efforts that it has taken on mental health and on suicide prevention, particularly for our veterans.
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