SAN ANTONIO – Military City USA is more than just a proud nickname. San Antonio has deep roots in the country’s Armed Forces.
But behind that pride is an alarming statistic. Data shows 22 veterans die by suicide every day. As mental health teams focus on prevention, people across the state are looking to expand how the state tracks these deaths.
Rhonda Gaston, the clinic director at the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at Endeavors, said people need to keep an eye out for these warning signs of suicide:
-
Helplessness
-
Hopelessness
-
Recklessness
-
Isolation
Her team provides mental health care for veterans and their families. Her staff is made up of people with lived experience.
“I served from 1997 to 2017,” Jennifer Hoag Wydler said.
She serves as a supervising clinician at the Cohen Clinic and is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. During her time in service, she worked in mental health. She said female veterans are more at risk of suicide.
“There’s a smaller population,” she said. “The resources are not structured for women.”
The Cohen Clinic said female veterans face 92% higher suicide rates than people who don’t serve. The clinic also reports:
-
Suicide rates among veteran women have risen by over 55% since 2001.
-
In 2022, veteran women were more than 144% more likely to die by firearm suicide than their non-veteran peers.
State Rep. Ray Lopez said these trends for veterans are the reason why he co-sponsored House Bill 39, which recently took effect as a law on Sept. 1.
The law builds a system to track the deaths of veterans who die by suicide and learn more about what happened to them.
“We found out that there was no one keeping that level of detail,” Lopez said.
To read more about the bill, click here.
Read also:
Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.