 Hunter DAV's Deputy National Communications Director, and with me today I have our Assistant National Legislative Director, John Retzer. We have some great news in the ongoing battle to prevent veteran suicide, but before we get into it, I just want to remind everyone, if you are a veteran or you know a veteran in crisis, please, there is a new simplified number for the Veterans Crisis Line, 988-PRESS-1. You do that, you get connected to a professional who can help you get the issues addressed. But again, we got a new VA policy in place here that addresses a battle to prevent veteran suicide. And John, if you wouldn't mind, please tell us a little bit about the new policy. Yes, the new policy that the Department of Veterans Affairs has just released just this week, as a matter of fact, on January 17th. So it started on Tuesday of this week with emergency suicide care policy. And this has been a policy that we have been waiting for. And over the past year, VA has announced and continues several additional efforts to end veteran suicide. And one that you had drawn up at the very beginning was dial 988-PRESS-1 to our Veterans Crisis Line for our veterans to quickly connect with caring and qualified crisis support, which is 24-7. However, this new policy, the emergency suicide care, allows the Department of Veterans Affairs to be able to provide, pay for, or reimburse for treatment of eligible individuals for emergency suicide care, additional to that with the transportation costs and follow-up care at VA or non-VA facilities. And some other things that are really critical in this process is that they're also allowing and have the ability to make appropriate referrals for care following the period of emergency suicide care. So there's continuity there. And then they can also determine when they have that veteran who's in need to see if there are any other eligible VA services and benefits that they may be able to be entitled to or to help them assist that process. And then finally, there is this referral that eligible individual for appropriate VA programs and benefits following that emergency suicide care. That's great news. So essentially any veteran across the country can go into any medical facility if they're having a suicidal crisis, get the care they need, and it is at no cost to the veteran. Is that correct? Correct, yes. And so the most important thing to remember is that the veterans do not need to be enrolled in the VA system to use this benefit. So don't have that stop you from reaching out to the community care that's there so that you can take advantage of the suicide emergency care system. And it's also been reported veterans who die by suicide are those who have not used mental services or substance use disorder programs that were provided by the Veterans Health Administration. So it's very important that we are able to get the word out on this additional resource to apply this policy to save lives. That's great. So and this new policy was actually made possible by the Veterans Comprehensive Prevention Access to Care and Treatment or the Compact Act of 2020. And I understand DAD's legislative team was busy advocating for this legislation up on Capitol Hill. John, can you tell us a little bit about the efforts that went in behind getting this legislation passed and how folks who might be watching us today could get involved in our advocacy efforts? Yes. The DAD's advocacy with regards to suicide prevention, we were encouraging, we were influencing VA and Congress to understand the importance to bolster mental health resources and ensure continued progress in reducing veteran suicide as their top clinical priority and to make sure that it's possible that the Compact Act was enacted and full to provide all the resources and means that were streamlined and with easy access for our veterans to take action to seek help during their crisis. And one of the ways that we highly encourage anyone to get involved with the DAV and our critical policy with regards to bolstering mental health resources is by signing up for the DAV CAN Commanders Action Network today to protect our veterans during this crisis that is preventable. Awesome. Great news there. Appreciate it, John. Again, the big news here, any veteran across the nation can go to any medical facility nationwide if they're in suicidal crisis, get the care they need at absolutely no cost. That's big, that's huge, and we hope it goes a long way in reducing the current endemic of veteran suicide. If you want to get involved, again, please join the DAV Commanders Action Network. You can do so by going on to davcan.org. But most importantly, if you or a veteran you know is in suicidal crisis, please call the Veterans Crisis Line at 988 and press 1. John, I really appreciate you joining us today and appreciate all the viewers for tuning in.