As advocates for military families, the members and leadership of Blue Star Families try to spread our message far and wide.  In that effort, in October of 2009, BSF members in DC had the opportunity to meet with military family advocate Deborah Mullen, Wife of Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

During the meeting, BSF's Communications Director, Rosemary William Freitas, gave a presentation about military health factors affecting military families.  You see, earlier last year, Rosemary was struck by the story of a 40 year old Army wife at Ft. Bragg who committed suicide.  She had 911 with threats of killing herself, but the police arrived too late.  Her husband was an Army Sergeant who had deployed multiple times.  It touched all of us, and the resulting internal discussion among BSF leadership led to Rosemary writing a very moving opinion piece for my local paper, The Virginian Pilot, and GlobalSecurity.org's blog, SITREP.  Rosemary wrote:

The news of this death incited a surge of email traffic among the leadership of Blue Star Families, a non-profit, non-partisan group of military spouses who work to promote awareness of the myriad issues facing today's military families. The majority of the Blue Star Families members are veterans of three, four and five deployments and at least one member has endured eight deployments in the past seven years. Many of the members expressed surprise at the age of the victim - that a woman 40 years old would have the coping skills necessary to seek help before taking her own life. Sadly, the suicide of this Army wife was not an isolated incident.

While statistics on depression and mental wellness among military spouses are not available, anecdotally, the typical wife of a junior enlisted service member, whose ranks make up almost 44% of our active duty military, is 19 to 22 years old. Many of these spouses have very young children, are far removed from extended family, are on a limited and usually single income (approximately $1500 per month for a family of four), and few have the coping skills that come with age and experience.

Mental health experts remind us that depression knows no boundaries - not age or income level, and is certainly not limited to the junior or enlisted ranks. A few members of the Blue Star Families leadership admitted to being treated for depression. One spouse of a senior NCO in Special Forces said that the combination of her husband's three recent tours to the dangerous Helmand Province of Afghanistan and the stress of taking care of two young children led her to deep despair, thoughts of suicide and hopelessness and, eventually, to a depression diagnosis and a prescription for anti-depressants.

The discussion among BSF leadership and Rosemary's moving piece, led BSF to focus more sharply on the issue of mental health among military families as a result of the increased OPTEMPO with which military families are now dealing.  This focus also helped lead PBS and Blue Star Families together and BSF acted as an advisor for PBS's new series, This Emotional Life, and helped PBS to develop related materials for military families.

Mrs. Mullen was also kind enough to meet with BSF and listen to our concerns.  And today, addressing the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs Suicide Prevention Conference in D.C., Mrs. Mullen stepped up for military families, noting,

“There’s another side to this, and that’s family members who’ve committed suicide,” she said. “It’s our responsibility. These are our family members.”

Families are under great stress, too, she said, noting that watching their loved ones deploy repeatedly can be equally as strenuous on families at it is on the deploying servicemembers.

“I think we need to realize that we have families that are under such great stress,” the chairman’s wife said. “This stress is only going to continue. We need to be able to give tools to family members who are left behind.

“I hope the families are something you will look at as you work through these really challenging problems,” she told the audience. “We do have family members that we need to be aware of, and we need to get our arms around the number of suicide attempts and actual suicides and the impact on the family.”

Source: Defense.gov

We have a long way to go.  Awareness, however, is the first step.  So on behalf of Blue Star Families and all military families struggling, thank you, Mrs. Mullen.  You're right.  These are our family members and its our responsibility to help.