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Sen. Dan Sullivan to conduct listening sessions on suicides on Alaska military base
Alaska Representative, Dan Sullivan, is planning listening sessions to discuss the suicide epidemic among troops in Alaska. The first session will be held later this week on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The second will be held on Fort Wainwright.
Alaska Representative, Dan Sullivan, is planning listening sessions to discuss the suicide epidemic among troops in Alaska. The first session will be held later this week on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The second will be held on Fort Wainwright.
Yesterday, Sullivan held his annual address to the Alaska Legislature. During his address, he announced that California Rep. Jackie Spear would be in attendance for the listening sessions as well. Speier is also the chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
Sullivan, who is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, said “It’s a horrible crisis. In the last four years, more soldiers have died in Alaska from suicide than were killed in action in Afghanistan – forty. It shouldn’t be that way.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">As a Marine, I've seen firsthand what happens when service members suffering from a crisis do not receive help.<br><br>If they do muster the courage to seek help, it can take 60 days to actually see a professional—and, as we’re seeing, these brave Americans rarely have 60 days.</p>— Sen. Dan Sullivan (@SenDanSullivan) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenDanSullivan/status/1515106011798982666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 15, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Earlier this month, Sullivan and Speier, along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, sent a letter to the Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth. The letter asked the secretary for additional support in tackling the disproportionately high suicide rates on Alaskan military installations.
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Sullivan spoke to lawmakers about his first hand experience with suicide while serving as a Marine Corps officer:
“We were scheduled to have a drill weekend in a few days for the Anchorage-based Marine recon unit that we both served in. I told him [a Marine under Sullivan’s command], ‘Don’t worry, Marine, I’ll see you in a few days. You and I can tackle this issue together.’ My Marine didn’t have a few days. I think about this tragic suicide a lot. What more could I have done? What more could the Marine Corps have done? We can do more, we know we can do more. We need to do more.”
According to Sullivan’s staff, the planned listening sessions will be closed to the public. The purpose of keeping it closed is to give members of congress to hear from Soldiers in a candid and private environment.
“I don’t know what the answer is,” Sullivan told lawmakers. “Let us know. We need everybody working on this.”
