{"id":252794,"date":"2025-09-25T04:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T04:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/252794\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T04:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T04:56:10","slug":"military-city-usa-confronts-veteran-suicide-epidemic-with-resources-data-tracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/252794\/","title":{"rendered":"Military City USA confronts veteran suicide epidemic with resources, data tracking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><strong>SAN ANTONIO<\/strong> \u2013 Military City USA is more than just a proud nickname. San Antonio has deep roots in the country\u2019s Armed Forces. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kNAFkD cuqaEv article-text\">But behind that pride is an alarming statistic. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.22vetsaday.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.22vetsaday.com\/\">Data shows<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">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: <\/p>\n<ul class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 kDvXdO font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Helplessness<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Hopelessness<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Recklessness<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Isolation<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Her team provides mental health care for veterans and their families. Her staff is made up of people with lived experience. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kNAFkD cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cI served from 1997 to 2017,\u201d Jennifer Hoag Wydler said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">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. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kNAFkD cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cThere\u2019s a smaller population,\u201d she said. \u201cThe resources are not structured for women.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The Cohen Clinic said female veterans face 92% higher suicide rates than people who don\u2019t serve. The clinic also reports: <\/p>\n<ul class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 kDvXdO font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Suicide rates among veteran women have risen by over 55% since 2001.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>In 2022, veteran women were more than 144% more likely to die by firearm suicide than their non-veteran peers.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kNAFkD cuqaEv article-text\">State Rep. Ray Lopez said these trends for veterans are the reason why he co-sponsored <a href=\"https:\/\/capitol.texas.gov\/BillLookup\/Text.aspx?LegSess=89R&amp;Bill=HB39\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/capitol.texas.gov\/BillLookup\/Text.aspx?LegSess=89R&amp;Bill=HB39\">House Bill 39<\/a>, which recently took effect as a law on Sept. 1. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The law builds a system to track the deaths of veterans who die by suicide and learn more about what happened to them. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kNAFkD cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cWe found out that there was no one keeping that level of detail,\u201d Lopez said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kNAFkD cuqaEv article-text\">To read more about the bill, <a href=\"https:\/\/capitol.texas.gov\/BillLookup\/Text.aspx?LegSess=89R&amp;Bill=HB39\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/capitol.texas.gov\/BillLookup\/Text.aspx?LegSess=89R&amp;Bill=HB39\">click here<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Read also:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 kDvXdO font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\"\/><\/ul>\n<p>Copyright 2025 by KSAT &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Military City USA is more than just a proud nickname. San Antonio has deep roots&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":252795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,517,1802,7202,7203,1197,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,2512],"class_list":{"0":"post-252794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-military","11":"tag-san-antonio","12":"tag-sanantonio","13":"tag-suicide","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa","22":"tag-veterans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115263162433349422","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}