ORLANDO, Fla. — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a crowd of veterans in Orlando Monday that the U.S. is making strides in building relations with foreign allies.

  • Secretaries Mike Pompeo, Robert Wilkie address vets at annual convention
  • Wilkie's keynote address will cover veteran mental health, homelessness
  • VFW is partnering with “Give an Hour” to host programs

The half-hour speech came along with news that the U.S. is continuing to apply pressure and sanctions to countries like Iran and China.

“America first does not mean America alone,” Pompeo said. “Other nations are rolling up their sleeves to work alongside us. We’re restoring friendships that were neglected for a long, long time.”

Among those relationships is the U.S.–North Korea relationship, which Pompeo said the Trump Administration is “… applying pressure to North Korea regime, but keeping an outreached hand at diplomacy,” Pompeo said. “I’ve spent more time with Chairman Kim than any other American, now surpassing Dennis Rodman.”

President Trump has held multiple summits with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un. The summit in Singapore led North Korea to release the remains of 55 unidentified American service members in July 2018.

Pompeo is an Army veteran himself and former Congressman and head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Pompeo became the first sitting U.S. Secretary of State to address the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ annual convention in more than five decades.

“The U.S. military is a force for good, everywhere and always,” Pompeo said. “You fought for things that deserve to be defended.”

Veteran Challenges

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie will keynote Tuesday morning’s address, and expected to highlight challenges facing veterans including mental health, PTSD, and homelessness.

The V.A.’s own accounting estimates 20 veterans and service members commit suicide each day. That’s approximately 6,000 per year.

“It’s very prevalent right now,” said B.J. Lawrence, National Commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).

The group, which represents more than 1.6 million U.S. veterans, says it is making strides in reduce the stigma of mental health in the military and finding ways to expand free programs to provide help to those in need.

That work starts as service members return to civilian life.

“We have veteran service officers located on military installations throughout the world,” Lawrence said. “We’re capturing that veteran in that transition period of exiting the military and entering civilian life and that point the Veterans of Foreign Wars is able to offer them programs.”

As Director of Programs, Lynn Rolf helps oversees VFW’s efforts to address the issue.

“There are a lot of external stressors,” Rolf said.

A former U.S. Army Company Commander, Rolf knows those stresses well.

“When I came back from Iraq in 2004 I struggled and the Army hadn’t quite figured it out yet, and it was a new thing with PTSD in general,” Rolf said.

Rolf said it has taken time for the conversation of mental health in the military to become normalized.

“There was also the (focus) to not talk about it, to suck it up and to drive on like we were all trained,” Rolf said. “It becomes such a huge epidemic that more and more we are reducing the stigma behind mental health.”

Identifying Signs of PTSD

In addition to the VFW trying to get veterans into programs sooner, they say it’s also about opening access and training friends and family members to recognize the signs as well.

Rolf said often family members take the brunt of the impact of a service members or veterans mental health.

“I’ve been close, I’ve been on that edge, there is light at the end of the tunnel, it’s OK to have personal struggles, you just need to know those coping mechanism, you need to know there are resources out there,” Rolf said.

VFW is partnering with “Give an Hour” to host programs and a national day of service as part of the “Campaign to Change Direction.”

The effort is to educate about mental health and to showcase how to recognize mental health, including the “Five Signs of Emotional Suffering.”

They include:

  1. Personality changes
  2. Uncharacteristically angry, anxious, agitated
  3. Withdrawal or isolation
  4. Neglecting self-care
  5. Feelings of hopelessness. ​