Guard leader is pressed for answers
Sen. Baldwin wants data about high suicide rate
Responding to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation into the high suicide rate in the National Guard, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has asked the head of the force to release specific numbers of deaths and provide details about how the Guard can provide better care for its members.
In a letter to Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, Baldwin cited several findings and possible reforms highlighted in the Journal Sentinel’s investigation last month, including the need for a one-stop shop of mental health resources tailored to the force.
“If federal and state services for Guard members, including mental health services, are not tailored in a way that accounts for this highly irregular and evolved profile of the National Guard, then we are falling short of our duty to support our servicemembers,” wrote Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin who serves on the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
In her letter, sent this month, Baldwin is also asking for what funding is needed to address gaps in mental health care for Guard members.
The Journal Sentinel investigation chronicled how four Wisconsin Guardsmen died by suicide in a five-month span in 2020 and early 2021 after serving in Afghanistan. The investigation also detailed how Guard leaders and lawmakers have failed to keep pace with the distinct mental health burden facing the force.
The suicide rate in the National Guard is higher on average over the past five years than the rate among full-time and reserve military personnel. In 2020, 120 Guard members nationwide died from suicide, up from 90 the year before. Guard leaders will not release the numbers of suicides by state, citing privacy concerns.
Two of the Guardsmen profiled by the Journal Sentinel tried to get help but either faced long delays in care or were given inaccurate information about services for which they were eligible.
The men also expressed concerns to friends and family about the stigma of asking for help, a cultural problem state and federal Guard leaders have pledged to fix. In her letter, Baldwin said it was critical for politicians and Guard leaders to improve their understanding of the distinct issues that Guard members are facing.
The Guard, intended to be a statebased militia used seldomly, has been increasingly deployed to meet myriad
other needs throughout the pandemic, including policing protests, driving buses and serving as nursing assistants in Wisconsin psychiatric facilities.
Guard units across the country have been called up more in the last year and a half than in any 18-month period since World War II, and there’s no cap on the number of times a soldier can be activated.
“Each state must have subject matter experts for suicide prevention that is a fit for their state, and these programs should receive federal funding considering that Guard’s outsized role in supporting federal missions at home and abroad,” Baldwin wrote.
The National Guard Bureau declined to be interviewed about Baldwin’s letter.
“It would be inappropriate for us to comment on interpersonal correspondence between elected officials and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau,” bureau spokesman Wayne Hall said.
On a separate Guard issue, U.S. Rep.
Jackie Speier of California, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, reaffirmed she will hold hearings on how the force handles sexual assault allegations. She said the hearings would occur sometime next year. Previously, Speier said the hearings would take place this past summer, a pledge that followed a Journal Sentinel-Cap Times investigation published in March.