The Answer to Veteran Suicide is More Mayberry than Mayo Clinic

Written by Tim Kirk at WHC

11 May 2025

The statistics are sobering: approximately 44 veterans kill themselves each day in the United States*. Despite unprecedented expansion of mental health services, hotlines, and awareness campaigns, these numbers have remained stubbornly high and the rates grow every year. This reality forces us to confront an uncomfortable question: What if our fundamental approach to veteran suicide prevention is incomplete? While clinical mental health resources are necessary, they alone cannot address the profound existential challenges many veterans face after military service. The crisis we're witnessing isn't merely one of mental health but of meaning, purpose, and belonging. Or, as I assert, 'The answer is more Mayberry than Mayo Clinic.' This article explores why building a life worth living – rather than simply preventing death – must become the cornerstone of our approach to veteran suicide prevention, and how community-based solutions may succeed where clinical interventions alone have struggled.

Military service provides structure, purpose, identity, and brotherhood. When veterans transition to civilian life, they don't just leave a job—they leave an entire way of being. The identity and purpose challenges they face go far beyond what can be addressed in a therapist's office or through medication. Don’t even get me started on the corruption that Big Pharma has brought to the process.

Building a life worth living requires attention to multiple dimensions simultaneously:

1. Identity reconstruction: Many veterans struggle with the fundamental question, 'Who am I now?' after leaving service. Their military identity was clear, valued, and reinforced daily. Civilian identity often feels ambiguous and must be consciously rebuilt. Legend Organizations like Veterans Affairs (VA), the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), and the American Legion (TAL) struggle with this in favor of pharmaceutical and clinical priorities while contributing to the problem by promoting alcohol abuse with local bars designed to be veteran-friendly.

   
   

2. Purpose recalibration: Military service connects daily actions to national security and protection of fellow citizens—a profound purpose. Civilian occupations rarely offer such clear connection to vital missions, requiring veterans to find or create new sources of meaning.

   
   

3. Community reintegration: The military provides instant belonging within a tight-knit community with shared values and experiences. Veterans must rebuild social networks in civilian communities that may not understand their experiences or values—and the military does nothing to prepare veterans for this relative to the significant effort that “Basic Training” puts into infusing strong identity and purpose into recruits. There is no “Basic Training” for good citizenship, exception made for the 1928 Training Manual 2000-25, which was cancelled and literally burned during the FDR administration.

   
   

4. Skill translation: Veterans possess extraordinary skills developed through military service—leadership, crisis management, logistics, teamwork—but often struggle to translate these into civilian contexts or convince employers of their value—because our society struggles with a lack of these values in our Hollywood culture.

   
   

5. Narrative coherence: Veterans need to integrate their military experiences into their life story in a way that makes sense and provides continuity between their past and present selves. That’s tough to do when a veteran discovers their government is corrupt, doesn’t care about them, and hinges on a Deep State that lies, murders, and steals elections in order to protect agendas against our nation’s declared values.

   
   

An honest approach acknowledges these challenges and addresses them comprehensively rather than focusing solely on symptom management. It recognizes that veteran wellbeing depends not just on the absence of mental illness but on the presence of purpose, meaning, supportive relationships, and contribution to something larger than oneself.

Traditional suicide prevention models operate largely within a medical framework: identify at-risk individuals, connect them with mental health services, provide crisis intervention, and administer appropriate treatments. This approach addresses only one dimension of a complex problem, even before this “science” has any understanding of the pathology of suicide. Imagine any other disease that killed 44 people a day in the USA. Would any credible medical treatment obligate billions of dollars a year without the ability to explain the pathology of that disease? To suggest doing so should get a practitioner laughed out of any Pre-Med undergraduate program, yet post-grad “professionals” get funded enormous amounts of money every year in grants to do just that.

A redefined approach to veteran suicide prevention would start with different questions. Rather than asking 'What's wrong with this veteran?' we might ask ‘What’s RIGHT with this veteran?’ Taking that perspective along a traditional epidemiological approach would soon lead us to the conclusion that it is not the mind or body of the veteran that needs help. Rather, it is a malady of the veteran’s very human soul. Not in the religious sense, but a simple viewing of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” reveals everything a practitioner would want to know. Appropriate interventions deal with 'What kind of life would this veteran find worth living, and how can we help build it?' Instead of focusing primarily on risk factors, we might focus equally on protective factors—the elements that make life meaningful and worth continuing even during difficult times.

This redefined approach shifts the timeline of intervention. Traditional models often focus on crisis moments when suicide risk is acute. A life-building approach works upstream, creating conditions where crises are less likely to occur or less likely to escalate to suicidal thoughts when they do.

It also shifts who delivers support. While mental health professionals play a role at tiny times, peers, community members, employers, faith communities, and fellow veterans are equally or even more important in creating the conditions for a life worth living. The most effective suicide prevention may come not from those with clinical training but from those who can offer meaningful connection, opportunity, and purpose. Relationships are powerful things, and armed with the right knowledge about the real pathology of suicide, they can be decisive.

Think of it as the difference between a safety net and a ladder. Traditional approaches provide a safety net to catch veterans in crisis. This is necessary but insufficient. We must also provide ladders—paths toward lives of meaning, purpose, and connection that give veterans reasons to climb rather than fall. Some innovative programs are already implementing this redefined approach. Organizations like the Warrior Healing Center have used community and camaraderie to rebuild bonds among veterans for years. Unfortunately, this isn’t a money maker for Big Pharma or Big Therapy VA, and billable hours start at zero and remain there. So that guarantees that politicians, the VA, and big corporate entities don’t care much for it.

Humans evolved in close-knit tribes where belonging was essential for survival. The military replicates this environment, “issuing” a new family resident in units, creating bonds so profound that service members often say they would die for their comrades even decades later. Then suddenly, upon separation from service, these connections are severed. The resulting isolation can be devastating—and when combined with the realities of civilian life, damage the soul to such a degree that the pathology of suicide is initiated. Absent relevant intervention, this can progress from Stage 1 to Stage 4 Terminal in very little time.

Community vitality isn't a luxury for veterans—it's a necessity. Research confirms this: a landmark study by Dr. Thomas Joiner found that thwarted belongingness (feeling unconnected to others) is one of the primary factors that contributes to suicide risk. Another study in the Journal of Psychiatric Research found that social support was one of the strongest protective factors against suicide among veterans, even stronger than the absence of mental health symptoms. If only practitioners could recognize the problem as a malady of the soul requiring little to no medications, but rather good old-fashioned community. Organized, trained, and equipped (OTE) community.

Effective community support for veterans has several key characteristics:

1. Authenticity: Veterans can detect superficial 'thank you for your service' sentiments. They need genuine connections with people who care enough to listen and understand.

   
   

2. Competency: Communities should strive to understand military culture and experiences without requiring veterans to constantly explain or translate their backgrounds. It takes about as much effort to become Red Cross CPR trained as it does to become an OTE community. But first, the community has to authentically care about veterans.

   
   

3. Consistency: Support must be reliable and enduring, not just available during business hours. OTE communities are available nights, weekends and holidays.

   
   

4. Reciprocity: Veterans need opportunities to contribute, not just receive help. Being needed by others provides purpose and counters feelings of being a burden—another major risk factor for suicide—and one that is easy cured when veterans turn around from patient to provider in an OTE community.

   
   

5. Accessibility: Support should be available without bureaucratic barriers or requirements to identify as struggling or needing help. Paging the VA.

   
   

This is exactly what the Warrior Healing Center does every day in a “one-stop-shop” model with everything under one roof.

The power of community connection was demonstrated during a natural experiment after 9/11. Researchers noticed that suicide rates among veterans temporarily decreased in the months following the attacks. One theory explaining this finding is that the national crisis created a sense of common purpose and reactivated veterans' sense of being needed—exactly what effective communities provide on an ongoing basis.

The United States has invested billions in expanding clinical mental health resources for veterans, yet suicide rates just continue to rise. This isn't because clinical care isn't valuable—it absolutely is. But it operates within inherent constraints that limit its effectiveness as a comprehensive solution to veteran suicide:

1. Access barriers persist despite expansion. Geographic distance, appointment availability, provider shortages, and complex eligibility requirements create hurdles. A RAND Corporation study found that only 30% of veterans who screened positive for PTSD or major depression received minimally adequate treatment—and even then the treatment missed the point.

   
   

2. Cultural misalignment between military and mental health cultures creates disconnects. Military culture values strength, self-reliance, and putting the mission above personal needs. Mental health culture often emphasizes vulnerability, self-disclosure, and prioritizing individual wellbeing. This clash can make veterans reluctant to engage with mental health services or uncomfortable when they do. This defeats the purpose and compromises recognition of the soul nature of the problem.

   
   

3. Stigma remains powerful despite efforts to reduce it. Many veterans fear career and gun-ownership consequences, judgment from peers, or self-perception shifts if they seek mental health support. A 2014 JAMA Psychiatry study found that only 23-40% of service members with mental health problems sought help, largely due to stigma concerns.

   
   

4. The episodic nature of clinical care doesn't match the continuous nature of life challenges. Weekly therapy sessions or monthly medication checks can't provide the ongoing support needed to navigate daily life obstacles. “Your 45 minutes is up! See you next week!” sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard to a veteran.

   
   

5. The individualistic focus of most clinical interventions doesn't address social integrators of wellbeing. A veteran may receive excellent therapy but return to unemployment, social isolation, or lack of purpose—conditions that undermine therapeutic benefits—and clinical providers are remarkably ill-equipped to handle anything social in nature.

   
   

6. The problem-focused orientation of clinical care can inadvertently reinforce a deficit narrative. Veterans may come to see themselves as broken or damaged rather than as resilient individuals facing understandable adjustment challenges. In reality, veterans are acutely “normal” for suffering from soul injury. The problem for them is that no one can explain what is happening to them. It makes no sense and there is no warning.

   
   

Perhaps most importantly, clinical resources primarily address suffering rather than creating meaning. As psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl observed, people can endure almost any suffering if they can find meaning in it or despite it. Clinical care can reduce symptoms but rarely provides the purpose and meaning that make life worth living—the meds numb the body and mind but do nothing to address the pain felt in the soul.

Few experiences in civilian life match the clarity of purpose that military service provides. Service members understand exactly how their role contributes to the mission and how that mission serves national security. This clarity creates what psychologists call 'eudaimonic wellbeing'—the deep satisfaction that comes from living in alignment with purpose and values. When veterans leave service, many experience what researchers call a 'purpose gap'—the discrepancy between the high-stakes, mission-driven work of the military and the often more ambiguous or seemingly trivial nature of civilian occupations. This purpose gap creates vulnerability to depression, substance abuse, and suicidal thinking. A veteran goes from leading a highly trained and effective team with multi-million dollar weapons systems to flipping burgers or selling cars. How do you think this feels?

Research confirms the protective power of purpose. A 2013 study in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that purpose in life predicted decreased suicidal ideation among veterans over time, even after controlling for depression, PTSD, and other risk factors. Another study from the VA found that having a clear purpose was associated with greater resilience against moral injury—the psychological damage from witnessing or participating in actions that violate one's moral code, a common experience in combat settings. If only they could realize the magnitude of these findings—but the Big Pharma dollars probably make the connections very hard to see.

How can we help veterans discover new purpose after service? Several pathways show promise:

1. The Warrior Healing Center employs “Care Teams” that help veterans imagine, engineer, and construct repairs to their damaged identity and purpose. Medications are famous for destroying veterans’ imagination, but when igniting the imagination becomes the starting point, veterans respond with wonderfully meaningful designs for their future selves. Care Teams then go to work helping veterans turn imagination into reality.

   
   

2. Creative expression: Writing, art, music, and other creative outlets allow veterans to transform their experiences into something meaningful that connects with others. Programs like Veterans Writing Project and CreatiVets help veterans find purpose through creative expression.

   
   

3. Advocacy and systems change: Many veterans find purpose in working to improve the systems they've experienced, whether healthcare, education, or veteran services themselves. Their firsthand knowledge positions them uniquely to identify problems and implement solutions. Find your pain, find your purpose.

   
   

4. Entrepreneurship: Starting a business allows veterans to create culture and purpose aligned with their values while leveraging their leadership skills. Veteran-owned businesses often incorporate service elements and provide employment opportunities for other veterans.

   
   

5. Education and mentorship: Pursuing education with clear goals and mentoring younger veterans or service members provides purpose through growth and knowledge transmission. Programs like Warrior-Scholar Project help veterans transition to academic environments where they can develop new expertise.

   
   

The reference to Mayberry—the fictional small town from 'The Andy Griffith Show'—evokes a particular model of community that holds valuable lessons for veteran support. In Mayberry, townspeople knew each other by name, noticed when someone was struggling, and responded with practical help rather than referrals to services. Work had clear purpose and value. People's contributions were recognized and appreciated. Problems were addressed through relationship rather than bureaucracy.

This community model offers several principles that could transform veteran suicide prevention:

1. Recognition and visibility: In Mayberry, no one was anonymous. People were known for their individual stories, strengths, weaknesses, and roles in the community. Veterans need environments where they're recognized as whole people with valuable skills and experiences, not defined primarily by veteran status or any challenges they face.

   
   

2. Natural accountability: Mayberry residents checked on each other without formal programs. When someone didn't show up as expected, others noticed and reached out. This natural accountability creates safety without stigma—something formal suicide prevention programs struggle to achieve.

   
   

3. Practical support: In Mayberry, help was concrete and immediate. If someone needed a job, community members connected them with opportunities. If they needed housing, neighbors offered solutions. Veterans often need this practical support more than clinical services.

   
   

4. Intergenerational connection: Mayberry featured relationships across age groups, with elders respected for their wisdom and young people valued for their energy and potential. Veterans benefit from both mentoring younger individuals and receiving guidance from older veterans who have successfully navigated the transition to civilian life.

   
   

5. Reciprocal relationships: In Mayberry, everyone both gave and received help depending on the situation. Veterans need opportunities to contribute and assist others, not just receive services that can inadvertently create dependency or reinforce feelings of being a burden.

Some communities are implementing these principles through innovative models: Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families has created a blueprint for military-friendly communities. The city of San Antonio has developed a comprehensive ecosystem of veteran support spanning employment, housing, education, and social connection. Veteran Villages are emerging in some areas, creating intentional communities where veterans live alongside civilians in environments designed to foster natural support. Yet while we at Warrior Healing Center have looked far and wide for a comprehensive example of meeting veterans’ needs, we have found very little in the community realm. For seven years now, we have worked to innovate in all these areas while reaching out to anyone who would listen. Our vision is to produce a nationwide network—not of little Warrior Healing Centers—but of communities who take best practices and implement them. Our desire is to have a cloud of communities working together independently to learn, develop and grow profoundly innovative approaches together. WHC is now and will always be where we are, but our intent is to remain all-volunteer and publish all of our data and processes for everyone to see. This makes for good collaboration.

The Mayberry model doesn't reject professional services—Sheriff Taylor often consulted experts when needed. Instead, it places those services within a broader context of community care and connection, recognizing that the most effective support often comes through ordinary relationships rather than specialized programs.

The veteran suicide crisis demands that we fundamentally rethink our approach to prevention. Despite unprecedented investment in mental health services, hotlines, and awareness campaigns, we continue to lose approximately 44 veterans each day to suicide. This tragedy persists not because our institutions haven't tried, but because our efforts have been too narrowly focused on preventing death rather than building lives worth living.

Veterans don't just need more clinical resources—they need communities that value their contributions, opportunities that leverage their unique skills, and purposes that match the significance of their military service. They need environments where they belong not as patients or clients but as essential community members with vital roles to play. They need the elements that make life meaningful: connection, purpose, identity, and contribution to something larger than themselves.

Moving from a primarily clinical model to a community-based, purpose-driven approach doesn't mean abandoning mental health services. Rather, it means recognizing their limitations and complementing them with the kinds of natural supports that clinical settings cannot provide. It means working as much on creating the conditions for thriving as on preventing the conditions for dying.

The metaphor of 'more Mayberry than Mayo Clinic' captures this shift in thinking. While excellent medical care remains important, the bedrock of veteran wellbeing lies in the quality of the communities we build together—communities where people know each other's names, notice when someone is missing, provide practical help without bureaucratic barriers, and offer opportunities for meaningful contribution.

For veterans themselves, this approach offers a path toward lives of meaning and purpose rather than mere symptom management. For families and friends, it provides ways to support loved ones that don't require specialized training or expertise. For communities, it creates opportunities to benefit from veterans' extraordinary skills and experiences. And for policymakers, it suggests that resources currently focused almost exclusively on clinical care will definitely be more effectively allocated across a broader spectrum of community-building initiatives.

By embracing this more accurate vision of veteran suicide prevention—one focused on building lives worth living rather than simply preventing death—we honor veterans' service more profoundly than any clinical intervention alone could achieve. We recognize that those who were willing to give their lives for a purpose deserve nothing less than our full commitment to helping them find new purposes for which they would never want to give up.

• https://docs.house.gov/meetings/VR/VR00/20220929/115166/HHRG-117-VR00-Wstate-LorraineJ-20220929-SD001.pdf

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