Kentucky veterans twice as likely to commit suicide; state, federal agencies can help

Officials at Kentucky’s Department of Veterans Affairs want vets struggling with mental health issues to know help is available. At a recent meeting of the General Assembly’s Interim Joint Committee on Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection, data showed in 2020, Kentucky veterans’ suicide rate was twice that of their non-vet counterparts. Silas Sessions, the executive director for the department’s office of veterans’ services, said many vets’ wounds aren’t visible.

“Those mental health issues that are connected to their combat experience or military experience, it gives more, more cause for them to have a higher possibility or probability to suicide.”