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Need help? Call 988 then press 1 for veterans. Or text the Veterans Crisis Line at 838255.

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Prevention

Veteran Suicide Prevention: Ways to Build Connection and Get Help

What families, friends, and communities can actually do: notice warning signs, check in, listen without judgment, help someone reach qualified support, and stay connected after the crisis passes.

Get help right now

If someone may act on suicidal thoughts soon, use one of these now. They are free, confidential, and open day and night.

  • Call 988 and press 1

    The Veterans Crisis Line answers the veteran option. You do not have to be enrolled in VA health care or benefits to use it.

    Call 988

  • Text 838255

    The text option reaches the same Veterans Crisis Line counselors if talking out loud is not possible.

    Text 838255

  • Immediate danger: call 911

    Call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department. If you are not sure whether it is an emergency, treat it as one.

Anyone can call for someone else. You do not need the person’s permission, and you do not have to be certain. Page last reviewed October 9, 2026.

What prevention actually includes

Prevention is not one conversation happening at one moment. In practice it is four things working together, and most of them are ordinary.

Crisis response

Immediate help when someone may be in danger: the Veterans Crisis Line, 911, or an emergency department.

Trusted relationships

At least one person the veteran feels able to tell the truth to, especially when things are going badly, and who keeps showing up afterward.

Ongoing community connection

Belonging that outlasts a crisis: fellow veterans, unit friends, families, faith and community groups, work, and shared purpose.

No single action, program, pledge, or symbol prevents suicide. What these steps do is reduce isolation, slow a crisis down, and make it more likely that a person reaches qualified care. This page covers the parts a family member, a friend, or a neighbor can act on today.

Warning signs

Warning signs are grouped below by what you might hear, what you might see, and what you might notice in someone’s mood. Any one of them is worth a conversation, and several together are worth acting on now.

What they say

  • Talking about wanting to die or to end their life
  • Saying they feel hopeless, trapped, or like a burden to others
  • Saying they have no reason to live

What they do

  • Withdrawing from friends, family, or activities they used to value
  • Giving away possessions or putting personal affairs in order
  • Saying goodbye in an unexpected way
  • Increased alcohol or drug use
  • Reckless or dangerous behavior

What they seem to be feeling

  • Severe anxiety or agitation
  • Dramatic changes in mood or behavior
  • Speaking or acting as if there is no way out

Take warning signs seriously without treating them as a prediction. Some people who die by suicide did not show signs that anyone could see, and many people who show these signs never act on them. The useful response to a warning sign is a conversation and a connection to care, not a calculation of risk.

The Veteran Suicide page carries the full list of warning signs with its sources, along with the crisis options and the resource directory.

Steps a concerned person can take

You do not need to be a clinician, a veteran, or an expert to work through this list. Go in order only as far as the situation requires.

  1. Take what you noticed seriously

    You do not need proof or a diagnosis to act. If something a person said or did worried you, that is a good enough reason to start a conversation.

  2. Ask directly

    “Are you thinking about suicide?” is a clear, kind question. Public health and clinical guidance from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes asking directly as part of helping, not as a risk in itself. It gives the person permission to say what they are carrying.

  3. Listen without arguing

    Let them answer. You do not have to agree, fix, or talk them out of the pain. Responding calmly to an honest answer is what makes an honest answer possible again later.

  4. Stay present while risk is high

    If you believe they may act soon, do not leave them alone. Call 988 and press 1 together, or call 911, or take them to the nearest emergency department. Reducing access to firearms, medications, and alcohol during that window matters too; see reducing access to lethal means.

  5. Help them reach qualified support

    Offer to make the call, sit with them while they call, or drive them to an appointment. The VA suicide prevention programs page and the SAMHSA treatment locator list care options, and FindTreatment.gov finds licensed treatment programs.

  6. Follow up and keep following up

    Check in again the next day, then next week, then next month. The hardest stretch is often after the crisis has passed and everyone else has moved on.

Checking in, listening, staying connected, and reaching support

Four practices carry most of the weight. Each one is a habit, not a single event, and the wording matters less than the repetition.

Checking in

You do not need the right moment or the right words. Reach out before you feel ready.

  • Be specific rather than general: “I noticed you have not been at the Saturday cookout” lands better than “let me know if you need anything.”
  • A short message counts. A text that says you are thinking of them costs nothing and can be read privately.
  • If they deflect, leave the door open instead of pressing: “No need to answer. I just wanted you to know I am here.”

Try: “I have been thinking about you. How are you really doing?”

Listening without judgment

The goal of the first conversation is not a solution. It is keeping the person willing to talk again.

  • Do not argue the person out of their pain or compare it with other losses.
  • Avoid promises of secrecy. If you are worried about safety, you may need to involve someone else, and it is better to say so than to break a promise.
  • Thank them for telling you. That single response shapes whether they tell you the next time.

Try: “Thank you for telling me. I am not going anywhere. Let’s figure out the next step together.”

Staying connected

Isolation is one of the conditions prevention has to change, and connection is the part families and friends control.

  • Keep inviting them without making attendance a test. Being expected somewhere regular matters.
  • Ask for their help with something real. Being useful and being needed are different from being watched.
  • Include the family, not only the veteran. Spouses, children, and caregivers carry the same isolation.

Try: “I am mowing the back field Saturday and I could use another pair of hands. Come by at eight.”

Helping someone reach qualified support

Your role is connection and access. Assessment and treatment belong to qualified clinicians.

  • Offer practical help: find the number, make the first call, sit in the waiting room, drive, or watch the kids during the appointment.
  • Ask a clinician about a written safety plan and about follow-up appointments before the visit ends.
  • Keep your own support too. Caring for someone at risk is heavy, and a depleted helper cannot stay connected.

Try: “I will sit with you while you call. We can call 988 together and see what they suggest.”

Your role has a limit, and that is fine. Staying connected is not the same as treating. Assessment, diagnosis, medication, and therapy belong to qualified clinicians. If you are worried someone is in danger, contact crisis services rather than handling it alone.

Reducing access to lethal means

A crisis is usually brief. Public health research summarized by the CDC and the VA finds that most people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide later, which is why making the most lethal methods harder to reach during a difficult stretch lowers the chance that a bad hour becomes fatal.

  • Firearms

    Store them off the premises, with a trusted person, or locked, and store ammunition separately. Guidance from the CDC and the VA describes this as a step families can take during a period of elevated risk.

  • Medications

    Lock up prescriptions, over-the-counter medicine, and any other medication in the home, including a pet’s prescriptions.

  • Alcohol

    Keep it out of the home during a difficult stretch, since it lowers inhibition at the same time as it deepens despair.

  • Keep it temporary and mutual

    The plan is to reduce access while the crisis passes, then revisit it together with the clinician.

Frame it as temporary and mutual, and ask the person to take part in the decision. People accept help with storing firearms far more readily when it is treated as one part of a plan they helped write than as a confiscation.

Red Star Foundation’s community and family-support role

Red Star Foundation works on the connection and recognition side of prevention. We do not provide clinical care, and we do not claim that our programs prevent suicide. What we build is the part that is missing when someone is alone with it: other people who understand, and visible recognition for the families left behind.

Peer-to-Peer Network

Local and national chapters, advocate training, and forums where veterans and families find people who have been through the same thing.

Red Star Voices

Films and first-person accounts from surviving families, which turn a number back into a person and give others language for their own grief.

Red Star Pledge

A simple public commitment to talk to someone before acting on an irreversible decision, and a reason to start the conversation with the person you are worried about.

Red Star Families

Ongoing belonging for survivors of military, veteran, and first responder suicide: Red Star Wives, Moms, Dads, and Children who stay connected to one another.

Peer and community support can complement professional care. It cannot replace it. A peer network is not a crisis line, a shared story is not treatment, and a pledge is not a safety plan. Someone who needs clinical care should receive it from qualified clinicians. The connection work around that care helps people stay engaged with it, and with each other, after the appointment ends.

What these steps can and cannot do

  • No action, program, symbol, or organization guarantees that someone will be safe. Anyone who promises that is overselling.
  • Awareness alone is not prevention. A ribbon, a post, or a speech helps only when it leads to a conversation, a connection, or a person reaching care.
  • Statistics describe the scale of a loss, not the risk of one person. The Veteran Suicide page explains why the VA’s official count and America’s Warrior Partnership’s broader estimate answer different questions.
  • You do not have to be certain to act. If you are worried, reaching out is the right response, and being wrong costs a conversation.
  • Support for you is not optional. Families caring for someone at risk can reach TAPS and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for their own survivor support.

Keep reading

  • Veteran suicide: the complete overview covers statistics, causes, risk factors, warning signs, resources, and the explanation of the different daily estimates.
  • Veteran suicide statistics gives the dated figures, the sources, and the arithmetic behind the daily numbers.
  • Red Star Families explains who the families are and how the Foundation stays connected to them.
  • Our programs lists every way to take part, including the Service Banner, the Service Pin, and the awareness ribbon.

Need help? Veterans and their loved ones can call 988 and press 1, or text 838255, to reach the Veterans Crisis Line. In an emergency, call 911.

Sources

Medical and clinical guidance on this page comes from federal health agencies and national suicide prevention organizations. Red Star Foundation is not a clinical provider and does not diagnose or treat anyone. Links open in a new tab.