The Impact Report with Katherine Lanpher

In this week’s Impact Report: military suicides and the importance of an official condolence letter.

When the Obama administration said today that it had lifted the ban on official condolence letters to the survivors of soliders who commit suicide, our hearts lifted too. And then, the fine print: the ban was lifted only for soldiers who commit suicide while deployed in combat operations.

That leaves a lot of people out, says Lily Casura,  the founder of HealingCombatTrauma.com, one of the first websites to serve as a resource for soliders trying to recover from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Did you know that active duty soliders commit suicide at the rate of one every 36 hours? And that, according to Casura, 18 veterans are committing suicide every day?

She talks to us about why those condolence letters are important - and why they should go to the families of veterans too.