Veteran suicide has seen an 11.6% spike between 2020 and 2021, totaling 6,392 suicides in 2021 alone, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs’ Veteran Suicide Report released this month.

Cole Lyle, U.S. Marine Corps veteran and executive director of Mission Roll Call (MRC), spoke with Fox News Digital about the new report, explaining why veteran suicide is an increasing issue, as well as what the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) can do to prevent veterans from taking their lives.

“It’s a disturbing trend that after going down for two years, we saw spike,” Lyle told Fox News Digital. “After COVID and the Afghanistan withdrawal … it’s probably not surprising that we saw an increase in veteran suicide.”

“Anecdotally, we saw a lot of evidence that both of those events were negatively impacting the mental health in the veterans community and suicide rates,” he added. “I mean, personally, I had to talk a few friends down off the ledge during the Afghanistan withdrawal crisis, so I don’t think anybody necessarily is surprised by this increase. But, it is tragic and there are seemingly simple things that we could do to at least try to reverse this trend.”

Full Article – https://www.foxnews.com/media/marine-veteran-breaks-down-tragic-trend-increasing-rate-veteran-suicide.amp