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.”
Eldon Renaud, the deputy commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs, told the committee about a young veteran he’s been trying to help for a decade.
“It's personal to me, it's, it's, you know, I want to make sure that this individual is heard, he's know somebody is looking out for him, looking to take care of him and not gonna let him stand alone and be left to the side.”
The Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs offers a wide range of services and information about other state, federal and private programs for vets.
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