Statement of Wes Carter, Major USAF Retired
National Chairperson, The C-123 Veterans
Association
also speaking for the united veterans committee
of colorado
Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee,
I’m Wes Carter, National Chairperson of the C-123 Veterans
Association. Today I also represent 450,000 Colorado veterans whose voice is
the United Veterans Committee. Before you today is the terrible issue of
suicide in Colorado and our hope that Senate Bill 16-147 can help.
I want to share some personal experiences with this issue.
My town of Fort Collins lost thirteen children last year. Four were suicides.
Four…over 30% if you want simple statistics. We don’t know all the causes, but
we certainly know the tragedies our families were left with.
Military suicides are something I became familiar with 26
years service in the Army and then the Air Force. For twelve years I was a
hospital administrator. Marvin, one of the officers who nominated me for my commission,
faced demons he felt could only be driven away by ending his life. I flew
medevac for several years with Diane, a flight nurse. I have a happy memory of
her rushing from work to attend my wedding, without time to change from her
hospital scrubs. I have been to her parent’s Massachusetts home only twice…each
time for the funeral of one of her brothers, both of whom ended their lives
while on active duty.
Military and veterans’ suicides. I can speak for the
accumulation of life’s burdens in the military…extremely difficult technical
and physical training, frequent deployments, injuries, career disappointments, loss
of friends, family strife, relocations, financial stress. And then there’s all those
people bombing and shooting at you. Life’s tough. We have an evolving
understanding that it takes a warrior to call in help. I wish more warriors
would reach out, but we see an average of one veteran’s suicide per hour, each
and every day. 8000 a year, almost an Army division. Last year in our county,
the 80 adults who ended their lives were 3.8% of all adult deaths, but remember
what I said about the children…30% of all children’s deaths were by their own
hand.
Senate Bills won’t solve
everything but, along with recent action in the US Senate, they’ll help. I join
Colorado’s 450,000 veterans in urging unanimous approval of Senate Bill 16-147.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
