Editor’s note: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
A coalition dedicated to improving veteran mental health efforts says it’s making progress toward its goal of dramatically reducing veteran suicide.
Face the Fight, founded in 2023 by San Antonio organizations, USAA and Reach Resilience, and the Humana Foundation, has worked with UT Health San Antonio, aiming to prevent 15,000 veteran suicides by 2032.
“Face the Fight was founded on a simple belief that veteran suicide is a challenge too large for any one organization to solve,” said Chris Ford, USAA’s lead for Face the Fight on Tuesday. “It has been the number one concern of our members and employees for more than a decade.”
According to the most recent VA report on veteran suicide, 6,398 veterans died by suicide in 2023, 44 fewer deaths than in 2022. However, the suicide rate per 100,000 veterans actually rose from 13.7 to 13.9 in women and from 37.3 to 37.8 in men.
In 2020, the VA reported that the suicide rate among veterans was 57.3% higher than among non-veterans.
The coalition has joined forces with more than 300 organizations across the country, working to provide groups that deal with military veterans with the resources and information needed to prevent suicide, even if their primary focus is not mental health.
“Face the Fight was built to unite organizations that care deeply about veterans, but may approach the issue from a variety of angles,” Ford said. “Not everyone is a suicide mental health therapist, right? But everyone has a role to play.”
The coalition and its academic medical partner UT Health San Antonio, released its 2025 impact report last week, reporting that they trained more than 88,000 people in suicide prevention interventions, distributed $41 million in grants and funded 83 projects across the country.
“We have documented that 1.4 million individuals have received at least one evidence-informed intervention as a result of Face the Fight,” said Katy Dondanville, the chief scientific advisor on the initiative.
Dondanville and her team have used a dynamic data model to measure the impact of Face the Fight’s efforts, projecting that they are currently on pace to save 10,900 lives by 2032, an improvement from last year’s estimate of 6,500.
They’ve found success by attempting to engage a variety of organizations that may be better able to reach rural or isolated veterans than the VA or traditional medical settings could. Face the Fight has provided trainings for screening for suicide, crisis response planning and firearm safety to organizations across the nation.
“We’ve worked really closely with organizations to train their staff, and also to train their staff in what to do if someone is saying that they are having thoughts of suicide, and giving them tools,” Dondanville said. “What is amazing… is that the response from the organization, their employees, their volunteers is positive, and it’s even more positive from the people that they’re serving.”
This community-driven approach has proven successful, said Ford, using the example of a rural food insecurity organization the initiative works with that was able to spot a veteran experiencing a mental health crisis, and get him the help he needed. But he also said they have a long way to go.
“This problem is still persistent in our community and far too prevalent,” Ford said.
A study released this week from the Yale School of Medicine and the National Center for PTSD found that though suicide rates have largely stayed the same over the last five years, the prevalence of recent suicidal thoughts among veterans increased by nearly 50% over that time. Women veterans and younger veterans experienced the highest rates of suicidal thoughts, suicide planning and suicide attempts.
Over the next year, the group plans to continue to use community infrastructure to destigmatize talking about suicide and receiving mental health help in the veteran community.
“So it’s really about training and equipping the entire nation to be on the front line in the fight against suicide,” Ford said. “It’s a big aspiration…we have a goal of saving 15,000 lives or more by 2032. It’s going to take all of us to contribute.”
The San Antonio Report’s military and veterans coverage is supported by Report for America.
