[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 135 (Thursday, September 8, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H5169]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        SUICIDE PREVENTION MONTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MURPHY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, since September 1, the first 
day of National Suicide Prevention Month, 944 Americans have died by 
suicide, including 160 veterans.
  Since the passage of H.R. 2646, the mental health reform act, in the 
House of Representatives in July, 7,552 Americans have died from 
suicide, including 1,280 veterans.
  I had the honor of meeting the parents of Sergeant Daniel Somers, who 
served bravely in Operation Iraqi Freedom. On June 13, 2013, Daniel 
took his own life after suffering from PTSD and traumatic brain injury. 
His family is heartbroken.
  He left a letter for his family before he took his own life, and I 
would like to share his words. He wrote:

       I am sorry that it has come to this. The fact is, for as 
     long as I can remember, my motivation for getting up every 
     day has been so that you would not have to bury me. As things 
     have continued to get worse, it has become clear that this 
     alone is not a sufficient reason to carry on.
       The fact is I am not getting better, I am not going to get 
     any better, and I will most certainly deteriorate further as 
     time goes on. From a logical standpoint, it is better to 
     simply end things quickly and let any repercussions from that 
     play out in the short term than to drag things out into the 
     long term.
       I really have been trying to hang on for more than a decade 
     now. Each day has been a testament to the extent to which I 
     cared, suffering unspeakable horror as quietly as possible so 
     that you could feel as though I was still here for you. In 
     truth, I was nothing more than a prop, filling space so that 
     my absence would not be noted. In truth, I have already been 
     absent for a long, long time.
       My body has become nothing but a cage, a source of pain and 
     constant problems . . . It is nothing short of torture. My 
     mind is a wasteland, filled with visions of incredible 
     horror, unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety.
       Is it any wonder then that the latest figures show 22 
     veterans killing themselves each day? That is more veterans 
     than children who were killed at Sandy Hook every single day. 
     Where are the huge policy initiatives?

  Well, Mr. Speaker, this is a letter that did not have to be written. 
I can't even imagine the grief of the parents of Daniel, but I also 
know that they want to spare other parents the same kind of grief.
  I continue to practice psychology at Walter Reed National Military 
Medical Center at Bethesda. I work with veterans who, like Daniel, 
suffer from depression and PTSD and traumatic brain injury. I have seen 
firsthand that, with treatment, these soldiers can and do get better.
  When our brave men and women come home, they and their families 
deserve better care. Yet we do not have enough crisis psychiatric 
hospital beds. Half the counties in America have no psychiatrists or no 
psychologists. And for every 1,000 people with an addiction disorder, 
only 6--only 6--get evidence-based care, and families are blocked from 
helping by a massive bureaucracy.
  So we can read more sad letters like Daniel's, or we can act. The 
House answered that call on July 6, 2016, when we passed, by a near-
unanimous vote, H.R. 2646, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis 
Act. But it only works and it only gives help if it is signed into law.
  I don't want any more moments of silence for Daniel or the thousands 
of other veterans or citizens who have died by suicide. We don't need 
more moments of silence. We need times of action. Those moments of 
silence are a slap in the face to the mothers and fathers who struggle 
to get help for their sons and daughters.
  So I ask: How can the Senate even contemplate the talk of going home 
before this is passed with this death toll climbing, even when they 
have the solution in their hands?
  Indecision and politics are overruling compassion and common sense. 
What about veterans like Daniel, for whom help never came?
  On behalf of those silenced voices, I call upon the Senate to take 
action and pass H.R. 2646 before they go home at the end of September. 
We must have treatment before tragedy. We must provide mental health 
support. After all, 90 percent of suicide deaths have a co-occurring 
mental illness. Otherwise, what will we tell those family members who 
find the next suicide note, that when there was a chance to act, 
Congress went home?
  These veterans will never go home. These thousands of other people 
who commit suicide, nonveterans, will never go home again, and the 
Senate should not go home again in September without passing H.R. 2646.
  Remember, where there is help, there is hope.

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