Congress Wants Vets To Swear An Oath They Won't Commit Suicide.

Buried in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2026—the mega defense bill that provides exponential funding for all things defense, year after year, decade after decade, war after war—is an incredible provision to stop veteran suicide: an optional oath soldiers can take promising not to off themselves.

The reverse suicide pact is the brain child of Florida Representative Brian Mast, who attempted to pass a stand alone bill in 2017 giving soldiers heading into civilian life a magic spell they can say to ward off the threat of an untimely death by their own hand.

According to Mast’s press release for the bill, “The Oath of Exit creates a voluntary separation oath for members of the Armed Forces aimed at reducing veteran suicide. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, an average of 20 veterans commit suicide every day and a veteran’s risk of suicide is 21% higher compared to an adult who has not served in the Armed Forces.”

Members of congress couldn’t get it together to pass even this pitiful legislation, let alone actually halt the onslaught of veteran suicides. The proposal died, so to speak, before it had ever had a chance to really live. Fortunately, it now has one more shot thanks to Minnesota Rep. Van Orden slipping it back into this year’s NDAA.

The cruel irony in this America of ours is that veterans actually have access to a socialized safety net not extended to other citizens: A separate healthcare system, on base childcare, veteran-owned business contract requirements, and that near-extinct rarity known as a pension. Nevertheless, The VA works poorly, soldiers continue to take their own lives, and the whole system rots on.

Perhaps the real issue though is not reforming veteran benefits, but changing what soldiers are asked to do, and the way irrational military campaigns degrade their own lives in addition to their standing in the eyes of fellow citizens.

Today, young men and women, bereft of living wage alternatives, are snatched up at high school and college recruitment drives, shipped overseas to undergo endless killing and traumatic brain injuries, before being returned to a society that has largely soured on celebrating the bloodshed they have since committed.

The memory of 9/11 and the beginning of the war on terror is now a distant afterthought in the shiny adolescent brains of Gen Z Zoomers, who ridicule it with detached fascination on Garfield T-shirts and in internet Memes. Long gone is the chest thumping nationalism that emerged from the smoke in 2001, or even further back still, when sailors home from Germany grabbed ass and smiled for the camera after winning the war to end all wars.

Recruitment has been down across almost all armed services branches until remedial programs were introduced to get recruits over basic qualification hurtles. Support for keeping troops at bases in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan has evaporated. And most civilians, the people these soldiers are fighting for, have no idea what their armed legions are up to or why they’re still fighting.

Will a promise uttered by exhausted soldiers not to kill themselves really stop the terrible act of suicide? Probably not. Will anything change without civilian leaders ignoring the war hawks braying for more mayhem? Probably not.

Despite all this, members of congress who have only ever fought their own constituents are happy to green light endless defense spending and place orders for ever shinier medals to adorn the coffins of those they send off to die. They are eager to ignore the knowing skepticism of the people who elected them, deferring instead to the retired generals that appear at congressional hearings to hawk the latest mega missile, laser guided drone dog, or low-cost anally concealable directed high-energy beam weapon.

And after signing the check for all that, the best our representatives can do for the people forced to pull the trigger is offer up a scrap to be read at the end of deployment, one final insult heaped upon the gruesome injury of endless war.

Take a look for yourself: