Last month’s figure is nearly 28% higher than the busiest of any month in the first 10 months of the pandemic and 15% higher than August 2021, when calls surged afterScott Mann, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, served three tours in Afghanistan and as a Green Beret for about two decades.
In a statement, the VA said there is "no particular data that can be pointed to in order to fully explain the increases" but that a combination of factors, including outreach campaigns and the launch of theBut many veterans said they believe the surge is directly related to the, which they fought simultaneously and without a draft, meaning they were deployed more than any other generation and for longer.
About 62% of combat veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan said they knew someone who was killed on duty, according to aOn top of that, a newly released survey conducted in part by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a nonprofit advocacy group, found that nearly 49% of veterans are suffering from trauma as a result of the events of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“It got pretty dark for me,” Mann said. “The depression came on really hard because of the way the war ended, because of the way our leaders abandoned our allies, and how we were left holding the phone.” That makes it difficult to find effective solutions, said Cole Lyle, a former Marine and VA adviser who is now the executive director of Mission Roll Call, a nonprofit veterans advocacy group.