Training gives Legionnaires evidence-based tools to save a life

American Legion Department of Utah Commander Ninzel Rasmuson recently received a phone call from a Legionnaire wanting to talk about his post. But after some time on the phone, Rasmuson could tell he was in a mental health crisis. She directly asked the Legionnaire, are you suicidal? Yes, was his response.

Rasmuson lived over an hour from the Legionnaire, so she asked him who his friends were at the post. He mentioned the post adjutant, who Rasmuson knows well. With his permission, she texted the post adjutant and commander about the situation while the Legionnaire remained on the phone with her. Before hanging up with the Legionnaire, she made the connection that he would be in immediate contact with the post adjutant and commander.

Within minutes of hanging up, the post commander called Rasmuson to let her know they had been in touch with the Legionnaire, and he was OK. A few hours later, the post commander called her again to say, “’Thank you for the intervention,’” Rasmuson said. “These are the kind of things that are reality. What we are doing in the field at the post, district, department level, that’s real time for us. We are in the trenches with the veterans and their family members and that’s what we’re hearing.”

The confidence to ask the direct, often not easy, question of “Are you suicidal” was one of several reasons Rasmuson and other Legionnaires in Indianapolis for Spring Meetings attended a Be the One training on May 6 at the Sheraton Indianapolis City Centre Hotel.

“A lot of our Legionnaires are not comfortable with talking about suicide,” Rasmuson said. “Yes, we’re sharing the Be the One message and we’re doing the mission, but if I walk into a post and I have a conversation, they are not comfortable to ask that question of ‘Are you suicidal?’”

The 90-minute training is provided through the Legion’s partnership with Columbia University, which uses the Columbia Protocol, also known as the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale, that gives a suicide risk assessment through six questions that anyone can ask to help identify whether someone is at risk for suicide and how to intervene if they are. The training is supporting the Legion’s Be the One mission to save lives by encouraging Legion Family members to take action when a veteran is at risk of suicide. 

The six questions are:

1.     Have you wished you were dead or wished you could go to sleep and not wake up?”

2.     Have you actually had any thoughts about killing yourself?”

If YES to 2, answer questions 3, 4, 5 and 6. If NO to 2, go directly to question 6.

3.     Have you thought about how you might do this?

4.     Have you had any intentions on acting on these thoughts of killing yourself?

5.     Have you started to work out or have you worked out the details of how to kill yourself? Do you intend to carry out this plan?

6.     Have you done anything, started to do anything or prepared to do anything to end your life?

Monday’s in-person session was presented by military suicide prevention experts Wendy Lasko and Dr. Keita Franklin.  

“If everybody felt comfortable asking the (six) questions, as a whole we would be in a better place because we would identify people who might not otherwise come forward,” Franklin said. “At the end of the day we know that suicide is preventable. When we can identify these small subtle signs in people, when we know people well enough and we’re approachable, and we ask them the right questions, it’s 100 percent preventable.”

Franklin and Lasko shared that there is no one reason why people die by suicide. “It’s really trauma on top of trauma over time in absence of any care or treatment,” Franklin said, noting that trauma can be caused from childhood, a car accident, divorce or family disintegration. “I want to make sure you know this in case you are interacting with a veteran who talks to you about potential trauma.”

Another risk factor for veterans is the transition out of the miliary into civilian life due to the loss of identity and sense of belonging that can be felt. Jerry McClough, alternate National Executive Committeeman from the Department of North Carolina, understands that feeling and it’s his why to be the one for others.  

“When I returned from Desert Storm in Somalia and when I got out of the Marine Corps, once you get out of that environment you don’t feel like you fit in the civilian sector,” he said. “You are feeling all the less … hopeless, homeless, jobless … everything starts spiraling down and you don’t know who to talk to. That’s when you start going to dark places.” McClough reached out to a local veteran center in his hometown where he met other veterans going through similar feelings. “When I discovered that I wasn’t the only one, there was a sigh of relief. I could have done a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Now I’m being the one to save other lives.”

The seeking of help is what Franklin wants to see for active-duty military and veterans. “You’re still a Legionnaire if you go get care. You’re still a veteran if you go get care. And we’re proud of you if you do that,” she said. “There are reasons people don’t get care that are real. Like the perception of being less than or you’ll hear ‘So and so is broke.’ We should not say that. Our vets are not broken. Our vets are heroes, and we want to celebrate them and support them based on all they have done for us and this nation.”

If a veteran is deemed suicidal after asking the questions in order, Franklin informed the Legionnaires that it’s imperative you stay with them and you get them help, whether that’s taking the veteran to a hospital or a therapist. And “talk to them about a safety plan – ‘I’m going to get you the care that you need.’ At the same time, you’re doing it with grace, dignity and them preserving their sense of autonomy and decision-making.”

The training reminded Wayne Blank, 2nd vice commander for the Department of Michigan and a service officer, that “you don’t bring yourself into the conversation. You let them talk,” he said. “We need to know these answers if we are going to be working with veterans.”

More than 1,700 Legion Family members have taken the training since February. Virtual sessions of the Columbia Protocol training are currently being held for Legion Family members to attend for free. Visit betheone.org/training to register for an upcoming session.

The Columbia Protocol training “was fantastic because it’s a partnership with The American Legion that includes the Be the One mission, it is evidenced based and we’re able to take it and directly apply it right into the world by which we live in with the American Legion Family,” Rasmuson said.