The other issue is mental health. I was at the Sam Sharpe breakfast this morning. It was a phenomenal event that showed us that we have a huge issue in opening our eyes and dealing with an elephant that's in the room—which probably didn't need to be as big an elephant as it is.
Deanna's report talks about the use of use of telehealth services for veterans in isolated or rural communities and the introduction of operations codes, which I understand are for physical conditions. We have talked about this at the committee a little bit in the past. Individuals who have mental challenges have faced some kind of significant situation while serving, but we don't seem to recognize that. It seems to be part of the culture, from what I'm reading, that you simply don't go there if you don't have to, so it doesn't get dealt with until much later.
With the culture, is there something wrong with saying that a person in the infantry just saw his buddy blown up and our making a deliberate note of that, saying to a veteran as they leave, “You have gone through some tough things here”? Maybe they want to stay in and don't want to deal with it right then, but is it not an option to have an operational code that would say, “Your knees aren't hurt from jumping from planes, but you've had to deal with this, and we want you to know that we're going to be here”? Is there not a way that we can implement something on the mental health side sooner?