This week, Invisible Wounds Foundation CEO Shannon Finn Connell and DAV (Disabled American Veterans) CEO Barry Jesinoski published a joint op-ed in RealClearDefense on one of the most urgent, underfunded, and underreported issues facing our military and veteran community: the link between military brain injury and veteran suicide, and what Congress must do about it.

The numbers are stark. Veterans with TBI diagnoses die by suicide at rates nearly double those without. The diagnostic tools to reliably detect these injuries don’t yet exist at scale. And critical federal research funding has been cut by 77% at exactly the moment the science is advancing.

IWF and DAV are calling on Congress to support three pieces of pending legislation that could advance how military brain injury is diagnosed, researched, and treated. As Shannon and Barry write: “If we want to seriously reduce suicide, we must first learn to find the brain injuries we’re currently missing.”