THE NAVY PROMISED TO DO MORE TO PREVENT VETERAN SUICIDES. IT’S FAILING AT THE MOST BASIC MEASURE – By Nick Turse (The Intercept) / Aug 17, 2022
Most Navy websites do not comply with regulations to promote the Veterans Crisis Line, an internal audit found, as officials take unprecedented steps to prevent suicide in the military.
THE U.S. NAVY mandates that a suicide hotline for veterans be accessible from the homepage of every Navy website, but a previously unreported internal audit found that most of the pages reviewed were not in compliance.
Sixty-two percent of the 58 homepages did not comply with Navy regulations for how to display the link to the Veterans Crisis Line, or VCL, which is run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a 2019 investigation conducted by the Naval Audit Service and obtained by The Intercept via the Freedom of Information Act. Almost three years since the audit, The Intercept has found that many Navy homepages are still missing the required icon linking to a resource that has been shown to help veterans in crisis. In the eight years since the mandate was first introduced, hundreds of sailors and tens of thousands of veterans have killed themselves.
“When suicide crisis links and phone numbers are not prominently advertised on Navy Web sites, there is a missed opportunity to facilitate and encourage Sailors, civilians, and veterans to seek assistance in a critical time of need,” the audit reads.
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