Why Do Members of Congress Hide Deadly Results?

It is very troubling for members of Congress, especially those who served, repeating the falsehood of "22 veterans a day committing suicide." How can we expect anything to change when they fail to understand the fact that veteran suicides are double the civilian population and over 70% of them are over the age of 50? How can we expect them to actually do something about taking care of younger veterans when their rate is triple their peer rate after billions have been spent in "prevention" and "raising awareness" so they can heal?

U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Upper Arlington wrote in the Chillicothe Gazette,

"I have served in the Army National Guard for nearly 30 years, and as a member of Congress, I have had the privilege of meeting so many of the brave men and women who have put their lives on the line to keep us all safe. As a nation, we owe our veterans a great debt of gratitude and I believe the most important way we can express our thanks is by ensuring they get the care they need when they come home.

Many of service members are suffering from things we cannot see, like post-traumatic stress disorder and the after effects of traumatic brain injury. This contributes to an unusually high and heartbreaking number of suicides. In fact, it is estimated that 22 current and former service members commit suicide each day.

While, Congress has taken tangible steps to improve treatments for PTSD, I believe more must be done to curb this epidemic and to find the right combination of therapies and treatments that work for each and every individual veteran. One type of therapy that has proven extremely effective for many veterans is service dog training. That’s why I am currently working on bipartisan legislation that would make this special form of therapy more available to veterans through our Veterans Administration facilities."

Stivers is pushing for PTSD Service dogs, which is a great thing however, they are not the answer for all veterans. As a matter of fact, they are only part of the answer for some of the veterans aided by them. He was in the National Guard for 30 years and should know all of that. So why doesn't he?

It isn't that the facts are being hidden. They are in plain view for anyone wanting to know what is really going on. As of the 10th of August, Wounded Times will be 8 years old. With over 24,600 posts focused on veterans, I can assure you that all the reports are there for anyone wanting to learn the truth.

After reading about suicides along with claims of what is being done to help veterans heal, it is obvious that no one in Congress has really paid much attention.

They have invested billions on PTSD within the military as well as in the veteran community but the results prove nothing has changed for the better.

As a matter of fact it is actually worse now for current military given the fact there are less serving while suicides went up. Sequestration cut the size of the military after the war in Iraq ended along with those deployed into Afghanistan. Less serving actually translates into less to count in the military and the rise in the number of suicides proves what they are doing does not work.

This is the result after all these years.

The Army National Guard and Air National Guard also counted more suicides in the first quarter of 2015 than the same time period the previous year. The Army National Guard saw 20 suicides in the first three months of this year and just 16 the previous year, an increase of 25 percent. Suicides among members of the Air National Guard increased from six to seven.

Current military committing suicide after all these years of Congress holding hearings and repeating the same stuff that pricelessly failed while no one was held accountable made sense to these folks and we should wonder why they were not appalled enough to change what they were doing.

Veterans committing suicide after all these years of "awareness" followed by ambivalence until some family decided to talk to members of the press about their sons and daughters being failed by those in charge. Members of Congress decided to call in their constituents to tell their heartbreaking stories so they could pretend to be paying attention yet avoid any responsibility to the next family having to appear before Congress to repeat the same emotional price paid for what Congress failed to do.

We see them facing off with SWAT Teams, police officers, being shot on our streets and being buried because they could not find one single reason to hope for a better day. Yet, oh no, lets not talk about all that already failed when they can pretend to be doing something about what we live with every single day.

Why should members of Congress actually learn what they are supposed to be in control over? Because until they do, we will continue to see the deadly results.