Absolutely. We have to work every day to destigmatize post-traumatic stress and what the media and, unfortunately, our own Department of Veterans Affairs have misreported for the last several years. Veterans are not dangerous employees. They won't bring this to the workplace. In fact, 98% of us are ready to go to work the day we step off the base into the community that we return to. It's really more about accelerating that process so that we can get to work.
When I educate employers every day, I talk about the misnomer that is “post-traumatic stress”, about demystifying it and talking about the data. They say that 22 American veterans commit suicide every day. Let's drill down on that data. We don't have to go into the specifics when we talk to the employers, because they usually get it right away, but 20 out of those 22 veterans are white males over the age of 60. This is exactly consistent with the civilian population in the United States, which shows, obviously, that there is no correlation to military service. It just shows that white males over the age of 60 tend to commit suicide, unfortunately, at a higher rate than do other populations.
It's really about breaking down those numbers and demystifying it as well as we can, and showing that they are civic assets, not detriments to the community.