Earlier this week, Knueven and six other soldiers went before a panel in the 18th Airborne Corps headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to present ideas on how the Army can revamp the way it deals with sexual assault and harassment.

The Army’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Program, also known as SHARP, has been the subject of much scrutiny, especially following the slaying of Spc. Vanessa Guillen by a fellow soldier inside a Fort Hood, Texas, armory last April.

The proposal Knueven presented to the panel Monday would address gender and military bias by reworking the composition of offender separation boards. She said her attacker went before a board consisting of three men and no women.

Knueven described in detail events on the night she says she was assaulted by a fellow soldier at a concert. And she recounted how she felt about reporting the incident and what went through her mind when she said she learned he would remain in the Army and ultimately face little punishment.

“I thought it was a total slap in the face to myself,” Knueven said.

Last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at his first Pentagon news conference that reducing sexual assault is one of his top priorities and that he would introduce stronger efforts to fight it.

“We have been working at this for a long time in earnest, but we haven’t gotten it right,” he said.

Staff Sgt. Shameka Dudley wants to see stale SHARP training PowerPoints replaced with virtual reality scenarios that would offer soldiers a glimpse at assault and harassment scenarios through the eyes of survivors, aggressors and bystanders.

“We have this same training and it’s really not changing much,” Dudley said. “The numbers are still going up.”

The 28-year-old mother of five handed out virtual reality glasses to the panel as she recounted the success she’s seen the method play in the treatment of veterans struggling with post traumatic stress disorder.

For her, it’s about understanding and empathy.

“The majority of people learn from doing, from seeing, from being able to be there,” Dudley said.

Dudley says soldiers who have experienced sexual trauma can opt out of the training as it may serve as a trigger.

The presentations were made as a part of the 18th Airborne Corp’s “Dragon’s Lair” series, a “Shark Tank” like competition that sources innovative ideas from within the Army’s ranks.

“This is an amazing effort to connect our best and brightest directly to senior leaders who are ready to take action. It just feels different this time,” Lt. Col. Scott Stephens, who presented to the panel, tweeted Monday.

The Corps says parts of all seven presentations will be implemented across the Army. Some ideas, like Knueven’s will be easier than others and involve simple policy changes, according to Col. Joe Buccino, Public Affairs Officer for the 18th Airborne Corps.

The Corps has already begun conversations with a film producer to bring Dudley’s idea to life, according to Buccino.

“I am confident, very confident, we will implement all ideas,” he told The Associated Press.

Knueven hopes that’s the case. She sighs when asked if change is coming to the Army. “I don’t know, I sure hope so.”

The 27-year-old paratrooper was a top performer. He was on the Commandant’s List and had just finished second in his class in the Army’s Advanced Leader Course, setting him up for a promotion within the storied 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg.

Yet, five days after graduation, after Lowe left texts and calls unreturned, Staff Sgt. Ryan Graves drove to Lowe’s apartment in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with a bad feeling.

“On the way there I think it set in that maybe there’s something a lot worse going on,” Graves said.

Graves opened Lowe’s unlocked apartment door to discover his friend had taken his own life. Weeks later, the why remains unanswered.

“Everything they teach you, that you’re supposed to look for, doesn’t exist in this situation,” Graves told The Associated Press. “No financial trouble, no relationship trouble.”

Lowe’s was the tenth suicide the 82nd Airborne Division has endured so far this year, a number that stood at four last year. In 2018, six division paratroopers took their own lives; four did so in 2017.

While the driving factors of the suicides remain unknown, Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, who assumed command of the division in July, believes that the forced periods of isolation and other stressors the coronavirus pandemic have imposed on his troops and their families have been a major factor. The increase has pushed Donahue to make suicide prevention a priority and frequent topic of conversation within his ranks.

“There is absolutely a stigma that’s out there,” Donahue said. “And if we don’t acknowledge that, we’re lying.”

This year has been an unprecedented one for the 82nd Airborne Division. In January, for the first time in three decades, the Division’s Immediate Response Force was activated amid rising tensions with Iran. Within hours, thousands of paratroopers went from ringing in the new year with family to boarding military transport planes bound for the Middle East.

At the same time, Lowe’s unit was finishing up a nine-month rotation in Afghanistan, America’s longest-running war.

By the time soldiers in both brigades returned to Fort Bragg in the spring, the COVID-19 pandemic was well underway as it threatened to overwhelm the U.S. public health system. Patriotic welcome home ceremonies were replaced with a mandatory two-week quarantine and restrictions preventing paratroopers from going on leave to visit family out of state. Gyms and dining facilities on post closed down and unit meetings were held via Zoom.

While those measures were necessary, Donahue believes it’s the primary fuel igniting the suicide increase.

“COVID has made us a division of strangers and we’re doing everything in our power to bring us back together,” he said.

While suicide has long been a problem in the U.S. military, numbers have risen this year by as much as 20 percent as service members struggle with isolation and other impacts of COVID-19, added to the pressures of deploying to war zones and responding to national disasters and civil unrest. Incidents of violent behavior also have spiked.

The numbers vary by service. Suicide is particularly taking its toll in the Army, where senior leaders told The Associated Press they’ve seen a 30 percent jump in active-duty suicides so far this year compared to last year. They’re looking at ways to shorten combat deployments and put more focus on soldier well-being and less on combat readiness and weapons modernization in response to the rising numbers.

Uncertainty is a given for soldiers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division. In June, the Immediate Response Force was called upon again, as paratroopers were sent to Washington, D.C., to quell protests after the death of George Floyd in police custody.

Some had just returned home from their first sudden deployment of 2020 and had been out of quarantine for less than a week when they climbed onto buses bound for D.C.

Living life on standby puts an obvious strain on relationships, which is another common thread the division is seeing in its suicides.

Peer support groups have been implemented for soldiers struggling with relationship issues and a sober living initiative has been launched to house paratroopers struggling with substance abuse in a separate, alcohol and drug-free barracks.

But those who knew Lowe can’t pinpoint any of those factors in his sudden and tragic death.

Graves tosses around the idea of the pressure Lowe put on himself. But even that is speculation.

“He wanted to be the best. He probably was one of the best,” Graves said.

Instead of delivering the news of Lowe’s passing to his battalion in a mass formation, the notification came over Zoom. Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Christopher Walsh and Command Sgt. Maj. Anthony Gregerson had practice after another soldier took his life earlier this year.

The loss weighs heavily on them.

“You consider every decision you make and the impact it has on 630 heart beats,” Walsh said.

Days after Lowe’s death, his artillery battery went into the field for a three-week training exercise. Brigade chaplains visited their remote camp site to offer counseling or simply an ear to listen.

Their services are often rejected by hardened soldiers refusing to ask for help. Couple that with the stigma surrounding mental health and the longstanding belief running deep through the military that seeking counseling could negatively affect a soldier’s career.

But since Lowe’s death, the men and women of the 1-319th Field Artillery Regiment are opening up and chaplains have seen an increase in soldiers wanting to talk.

Soldiers are prepared to accept casualties when they’re deployed. The 82nd’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team lost five paratroopers during their recent stint in Afghanistan.

When a soldier is killed in action, Gregerson has watched the mission of the ones left behind, strengthen. They can focus on the enemy in front of them in combat; the objective is clear.

But at home, the fight changes. The demons haunting soldiers become more elusive.

“How do you get after this invisible enemy that you don’t know people are going through?” he asked.

Associated Press reporter Lolita Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

The motion filed Friday seeks to have the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces re-examine the impartiality of retired Army Col. Jeffrey Nance, the military judge who sentenced Bergdahl. The motion says Nance was working to secure a job with the Department of Justice at the time of his ruling in the Bergdahl case.

In 2017, Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Bergdahl was a 23-year-old private first class in June 2009 when, after five months in Afghanistan, he disappeared from his remote infantry post near the Pakistan border, triggering a massive search operation.

Videos emerged soon after Bergdahl’s disappearance showing him in captivity by the Taliban. For years, the U.S. kept tabs on Bergdahl with spies and satellites as behind-the-scenes negotiations played out sporadically. Then in May 2014, he was handed over to U.S. Special Forces in a swap for five Taliban detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison, fueling an emotional U.S. debate about whether Bergdahl was a hero or a deserter.

The appellate judges upheld Bergdahl’s conviction earlier this year in a narrow 3-2 decision when they held that disparaging comments made about Bergdahl by the late Sen. John McCain and President Donald Trump in the White House Rose Garden back in October 2017 did not invalidate his prosecution.

Trump had described the ex-soldier as a “dirty rotten traitor,” called for the execution of Bergdahl by firing squad and joked in campaign appearances last election cycle that Bergdahl should be thrown from a plane without a parachute.

On Oct. 16, the same day Nance accepted Bergdahl’s guilty plea, court documents show he applied for a position as a federal immigration judge.

Following Trump’s comments, Bergdahl’s attorney asked Nance to dismiss the case because of Trump’s comments “vilifying” Bergdahl.

According to court documents, Nance assured Bergdahl’s counsel that Trump’s comments would have no impact on his decision saying, “I have no hope or ambition beyond my current rank … I am completely unaffected by any opinions President Trump may have about Sgt. Bergdahl.”

But according to the motion, Nance highlighted his role as the judge presiding over Bergdahl’s case while applying to work in the Justice Department and even included as a writing sample a ruling rejecting Bergdahl’s unlawful command influence arguments.

Court documents state Nance never disclosed he was applying for a position as an immigration judge. But a press release announced his appointment to the position, by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in September 2018.

Public affairs staff at the Justice Department who handle communications for the Georgia immigration court that currently lists Nance as a judge didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The motion was first reported on the CAAFlog website, which covers military legal affairs. Bergdahl’s attorney, Eugene Fidell, confirmed that the motion posted on the blog was accurate but declined further comment in an email.

In November 2017, Nance spared Bergdahl prison time in a sentence that included a dishonorable discharge, a reduction in rank and the forfeiture of some pay. Prosecutors had sought a stiffer penalty of more than a decade in prison because of wounds suffered by service members who searched for Bergdahl after he disappeared in 2009. Trump quickly called the sentence a “disgrace” at the time.

Before the sentencing, Nance rejected defense motions that charges should be dismissed or punishment limited because Trump was exerting unlawful command influence. While he declined to rule in the defense’s favor, he said at the time he had concerns about Trump’s comments affecting public perception of the military justice system. He said then that he would consider Trump’s comments a factor promoting leniency.

Associated Press writers Jonathan Drew in Durham, North Carolina, and James LaPorta in Delray Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.

Members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, which is based in D.C. and typically guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, were mobilized last month to respond to massive protests over the treatment of Black Americans and systemic issues of police brutality. But the troops were never actually sent to the protests after they arrived.

The soldiers were issued bayonets for their June 2 deployment — but told they were to remain in their scabbards and not attached to their service rifles, Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Mark A. Milley wrote to two U.S. representatives in a letter that was obtained by the AP. The soldiers were also told no weapons were to enter the capital without clear orders and only after nonlethal options were first reviewed, he said.

Milley said the order to mobilize the troops came from Army Maj. Gen. Omar Jones, who serves as commander of the military district of Washington. Milley’s letter, dated June 26, was sent to Democratic Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Rep. Ted Lieu of California, who demanded an explanation after the AP first reported on the use of bayonets on June 2.

Roughly 700 members of the 82nd Airborne Division were sent on that day to two military bases near the District Capitol Area. The AP previously reported soldiers were armed with live rounds, bayonets, and riot gear. Bloomberg reported on June 11 that the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, nicknamed “The Old Guard,” was also issued bayonets.

Upon arrival, neither the 82nd nor The Old Guard were ever called off base and into the city to respond to protests. Division paratroopers were sent back to Fort Bragg on June 4.

But the reports led to sharp condemnation and outrage on social media platforms.

An unclassified military document obtained by the AP also shows that some of the soldiers were not prepared to deal with the protesters. Instead, commanders planned to give them the proper training within 96 hours of their arrival in Washington.

While some infantry soldiers are trained in crowd control, especially those preparing for overseas deployment, they don’t typically undergo training for riot control and domestic civil unrest.

In a letter to Milley on June 22, Krishnamoorthi and Lieu expressed concern that the use of bayonets could escalate any potential violence at protests. They drew parallels to the 1970 Kent State shootings in which four students were killed by National Guardsmen.

“The escalation and violence leading up to and following those killings included those same troops meeting peaceful demonstrators with bayonets,” the representatives wrote.

In his response, Milley stopped short of agreeing to bar service members from deploying to domestic protests with bayonets in the future. He said each situation would have to be dealt with individually.

In a joint statement to the AP on Thursday, the U.S. representatives wrote: “While we are grateful for General Milley’s responses to our questions concerning the arming of troops with bayonets for potential deployment against protesters, we were disappointed he was not willing to commit to banning the practice.”

They added: “We recognize the necessity of the Joint Force preserving flexibility to respond to varying circumstances, but it is difficult for us to imagine a circumstance which could necessitate or justify the deployment of bayonets against American civilians.”

The bayonet news broke at the same time the AP first reported that President Donald Trump ordered military aircraft to fly above demonstrators in a “show of force.” That information came from two Defense Department officials who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing operations publicly.

Show-of-force missions within the U.S. military are designed to intimidate an opposing force and to warn of potential military action if provoked further. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters that the incident, involving an Army National Guard medical evacuation helicopter that hovered low over protesters in Washington, D.C., is under investigation.

Milley also found himself embroiled in controversy after he walked with President Donald Trump to a photo-op outside St. John’s Church after passing through Lafayette Park, which the military cleared of protesters beforehand.

He later apologized and said he “should not have been there.”

LaPorta reported from Delray Beach, Florida.

Trump’s relationship with the nation’s military community has been frequently strained. But just four months before the November election, reports that he either ignored, or was unaware of, a Russian plot to kill U.S. troops could intensify the tension and create new political risks.

“I don’t think he cares about troops at all,” said Shawn LeMond, a Navy veteran who served his country in the Middle East and then his state of North Carolina as a Republican legislator. “If he didn’t know about Russia, it’s because he didn’t do his damn homework. And that’s despicable.”

After sitting out the 2016 election, LeMond has withdrawn from the Republican Party and plans to vote for Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, this fall.

It’s difficult to gauge how widespread LeMond’s sentiment is among veterans, but there was a significant outcry this week from a collection of retired servicemen, elected officials in both parties and families of fallen soldiers who have lost confidence in the president’s commitment to the troops. That’s just four weeks after Trump’s former defense secretary James Mattis, a Marine general, described the president as a threat to the Constitution.

Any erosion in Trump’s support from the national security community, long a pillar of the GOP base, could damage his reelection prospects, particularly in swing states with large concentrations of veterans, including Florida, Virginia, Texas and North Carolina.

Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., whose district includes Fort Bragg, acknowledged the troubling nature of the revelations, but like many other Republicans on Capitol Hill, he sidestepped Trump’s role.

“There is no consensus on the intelligence yet, but as Fort Bragg’s congressman, I’m deeply troubled by the reports,” he said. “And if they are verified to be true, I believe there needs to be swift and severe consequences on Russia.”

American intelligence has assessed that Russia offered militants bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan. Initial intelligence was shared with the White House and included in one of Trump’s daily briefings in early 2019. In spite of that, Trump has maintained a warm relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin throughout his presidency.

The White House initially said Trump wasn’t briefed on the intelligence. But on Tuesday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was indeed briefed, though there were reservations about the veracity of the allegations.

“Make no mistake. This president will always protect American troops,” she declared.

Those words rang hollow to some who serve the military community, like Rep. Paul Cook, R-Calif., a Marine veteran who represents several military installations and is retiring at year’s end.

“I’m not really sure he absorbs a lot of this stuff,” Cook told The Associated Press of reports that Trump was briefed on the bounties. “He’s probably thinking about the polls.”

Cook added: “I’m not going to be an apologist for Trump. Trump is Trump.”

Biden leaned into the debate Tuesday, calling the Trump administration’s handling of the Russian intelligence “an absolute dereliction of duty.”

As he often does, Biden reflected on his own son’s military service in Iraq. The developments were even more personal for potential Biden running mate Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a former Army lieutenant colonel who lost her legs in a helicopter crash in Iraq.

“It’s deeply personal, it’s nauseating, and it’s obscene,” Duckworth, D-Ill., said of Trump’s muted response to the Russian bounties, which she cast as evidence that the commander in chief doesn’t value the well-being of American troops. “I think the only thing President Trump cares about is his own reelection and his own well-being.”

The most poignant reactions, however, didn’t come from politicians.

Erik Hendriks lost his 25-year-old son in an April 2019 attack that intelligence officials believe may be tied to the Russian bounties. The New York man said the pain of his son’s death would be even worse if there were bounties on American troops that the Trump administration didn’t address.

“When they sign up and they go — any soldier, a Marine, Navy, Air Force, Army — I’m sure they want to believe that the government is 100% in their corner,” Hendriks told the AP. “And if any of this is true, how could a soldier actually believe that anymore? How could this government let one soldier go on patrol out there knowing this is true?”

Those questions resonated with Matthew Whitney, a retired Army intelligence officer who worked in the Pentagon and now lives in Florida, a must-win state for the president.

The 55-year-old Orlando man said the Trump administration clearly didn’t prioritize vital intelligence on Russia, which speaks either to the president’s leadership or to the people he surrounds himself with. He said he voted for Trump four years ago and wouldn’t do it again.

“I feel like when this president stands in front of the troops — there’s probably a part of his heart that cares for them — but I wonder to what extent they’re basically just props for him to talk about himself,” Whitney said.

He admitted, however, that many of his close friends from the military community continue to support Trump.

That’s the case in the Bush household near Fort Bragg, where Robyne Bush, the mother of a soldier in basic training and the wife of a retired Green Beret, shrugged off the latest revelations as old news.

“We knew this. It’s not a secret,” said Bush, an Army veteran herself, who has helped comfort nearly 20 families of fallen soldiers.

She voted for Trump in 2016 and vowed to do so again, praising his support for service members and the Veterans Administration.

“I don’t like him as a person. I don’t like that personality,” Bush said. “But I think that he knows more than he ever lets on.”

Peoples reported from New York. Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Nathan Ellgren in Washington and Deepti Hajela in New York contributed to this report.

When his mandatory two-week quarantine ended last Friday, Clyde made the short drive to Fort Bragg and boarded a plane for a nine-month deployment in the Middle East.

The 34-year-old is among 2,200 paratroopers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team deploying to Iraq and Syria amid the coronavirus pandemic. They’ll be supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S military battle to defeat the Islamic State.

In 2016, Brown learned ways to keep his worries at bay during his husband’s first stint in Iraq. The then-newlywed ignored headlines and prayed without ceasing for Clyde’s protection. But the virus has added yet another worry that is hard to ignore.

“He’s going to be fighting two wars at the same time,” Brown said.

Because of travel restrictions, Spc. Amy Cloud can’t say goodbye to her family in Pennsylvania before her predeployment lockdown on Bragg. But the unexpected is what she signed up for.

“I volunteered for this. We don’t have a draft. No one forced me to enlist in the military. I did it of my own choice,” she said.

Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the Department of Defense has been forced to adapt quickly to comply with guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, while maintaining military personnel in a constant state of readiness.

Married soldiers, like Clyde, are allowed to quarantine off base inside private homes and apartments. But those who are single spend their last two weeks in the U.S. at FOB (Forward Operating Base) Patriot, a secluded compound on Fort Bragg.

When paratroopers touch down in the Middle East, they’ll immediately be screened for COVID-19. Any soldier who exhibits symptoms will be quarantined again for two weeks in Kuwait.

On bases across Iraq, Syria and Kuwait, physical distancing guidelines were implemented months ago. Dining facilities remain empty as soldiers are required to take meals to go. Workouts are done outside and barbershop appointments are meticulously tracked in case someone gets sick.

Readiness to deploy at a moment’s notice has always been a way of life for paratroopers in the 82nd Airborne Division. The division’s Immediate Response Force is a rotating brigade-sized entity that can mobilize for a crisis within hours. Even so, they have already been extraordinarily busy this year.

On New Years Eve, President Donald Trump mobilized the force to the Middle East. On June 1, not long after some had just returned from that deployment, they found themselves bound for Washington, D.C., to quell civil unrest in Washington, D.C., in response the killing of George Floyd, a black man prosecutors say was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer. Floyd died last month after the police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes.

The 1st Brigade soldiers who were mobilized had just two hours to report to Fort Bragg. They were in Washington by that evening.

Airborne training throughout the Army, suspended since March because of the coronavirus, resumed last month. Soldiers wore protective face masks as they strapped on nearly 100 pounds (45 kilograms) of parachutes and gear, but were allowed to remove their facial coverings before jumping out of an airplane high above Fort Bragg.

Among those in training on a recent day in May was Sgt. Isaiah Solis. Solis waited on a dusty bleacher to climb into a sand-colored mechanical box resembling a Humvee. The press of a button moved the vehicle back and forth until it was upside down, as soldiers chanted “Rollover! Rollover! Rollover!” while suspended by their seatbelts. The exercise is meant to simulate what can happen if an armored vehicle takes a hit from an improvised explosive device.

This will be Solis’ second deployment. He doesn’t think much about the risk — but his mom does.

“She’s always worried about me, she’s always calling me,” he said.

He admits the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic haven’t been comfortable – but he says nothing about the Army is. He’s ready to deploy, even if it looks a bit different this time around.

“Mission is the same: Go fight bad guys,” he said.

He had been trained as a forward observer — the person who spots a target and gives coordinates to artillery — but when he got to Iraq, the then 19-year-old instead found himself photographing dead bodies for intelligence gathering. A suicide attempt before his second deployment triggered a less than honorable discharge and a long fight to gain honorable status after being diagnosed with PTSD.

Goldsmith credits the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical staff with saving his life.

The VA and its partner mental health providers have kept thousands of veterans in treatment during the coronavirus pandemic through telehealth appointments. But as job losses and increased social isolation take an extended toll, some veterans’ advocates worry the already understaffed VA medical facilities can’t keep up and that telehealth isn’t enough.

“After years of self-imposed isolation … I was really in need of person-to-person contact,” said Goldsmith, now the assistant director of policy at Vietnam Veterans of America. “Flash forward almost 13 years now since I got out, and telehealth is right for me.”

The VA on Friday kicked off a “Now is the Time” campaign aimed at alerting veterans and their families to the mental health resources that are available to them.

But veterans advocates still are waiting for a report by a White House task force established by President Donald Trump last year that was charged with developing a national roadmap to boost mental health care and stem persistently high suicide numbers among veterans, who have been hard hit in the pandemic.

Release of the task force report had been scheduled in March but was abruptly shelved due to the outbreak.

“We are not happy about this decision because we understand that there are partnerships and financial resources tied to this plan that we’d like to see implemented immediately,” said Chanin Nuntavong, executive director of The American Legion’s Washington office.

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie told veterans groups in a call last week that the draft report was being finalized but declined to give a release date.

An administration official, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations, told The Associated Press that officials planned to unveil the plan around Memorial Day. Karen Pence, wife of the vice president, will help launch the effort.

VA officials said telehealth medical appointments jumped from 20,000 in February to nearly 154,000 in April. Many of the department’s partners have moved most or all of their mental health appointments to telehealth, including the Cohen Veterans Network which transitioned 98% of patients at its 15 clinics.

The VA has provided some veterans with tablets, phones and affordable data rates through several private partnerships. Dr. Matt Miller, acting director of the VA’s suicide prevention program, said veterans aren’t waiting long for telehealth sessions, but only wait times for in-person appointments are tracked.

Sherman Gillums Jr., the chief advocacy officer for AMVETS, said telemedicine is likely saving lives, but it is also likely missing some older or less tech savvy veterans. He wants the VA to move veterans with canceled appointments to the front of the line when things reopen and make more inpatient beds immediately available.

“I just don’t want them to oversell telemedicine. We had it before when veteran suicide became an issue, and it wasn’t a fix,” Gillums said.

Gillums said a suicide prevention tool created by AMVETS to train family members to spot signs of suicidal thoughts before a veteran gets to a crisis could help families during stay-at-home orders.

For years, the government reported that 20 veterans die by suicide each day, about 1.5 times higher than non-veterans. Last fall, the VA adjusted the methodology to remove from the count some active-duty service members and former members of the National Guard and Reserve, updating the veteran suicide rate to 17 a day based on 2017 data, the most recent available. There were 6,139 suicide deaths in 2017, which is up 129 from the previous year, even as the total veteran population declined.

The government says about two-thirds of those were not under VA care, pointing to a need for improved outreach.

“We have been very busy during the COVID crisis — with our efforts focused on getting in front of the mental health crisis that we know is coming,” Barbara Van Dahlen, executive director of the task force, told the AP. The group has boosted social media efforts during the pandemic.

At Cohen Veterans Network, website traffic has increased, including a spike between midnight and 4 a.m. Saturdays when people are alone or experiencing insomnia.

Anthony Hassan, the president and chief executive officer of Cohen, said he doesn’t believe the country’s mental health system is prepared for the surge likely to happen from the pandemic. Cohen is opening 10 new centers by the end of next year and hiring more staff.

“The one thing I don’t want to be is too late… We need to be talking now about how we can make sure we are ahead of this,” Hassan said.

Staff have set up online groups— yoga classes, mindfulness training, sessions about unemployment — to help veterans and families cope.

Chad Sneary was only a few hours into his shift at a Mooresville, North Carolina, manufacturing plant when he was laid off in early April. The 43-year-old, who served six years in the Marine Corps and two in the Ohio National Guard, insisted on working his full shift.

Sneary and his family are surviving on pantry items and hoping he is approved for unemployment soon.

“Financial skills is not something the military ever taught you. Most of us live paycheck to paycheck,” he said.

New government statistics released Friday show the unemployment rate among veterans in April was 11.7%, up from 2.3% a year earlier. The overall unemployment last month was 14.7%.

The Independence Fund, a nonprofit that helps critically wounded service members, has received hundreds of financial requests and is struggling to meet a nearly 600% increase in need.

Meanwhile, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America has seen an almost 25% increase in the hundreds of calls to its rapid response hotline for veterans in crisis. Jeremy Butler, the group’s chief executive officer, said the largest increases are requests for financial, housing or mental health referrals.

Goldsmith, who has spent years advocating for other veterans, worries about the trauma that national guard members, first responders and others are experiencing and whether they will get care.

“There is going to be a lot of survivors’ guilt,” he said. “People don’t die from PTSD in the midst of war. When they sit with these new fresh raw memories, that’s when PTSD takes lives.”

Lauer reported from Philadelphia, and Yen reported from Washington. AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.

Most of the traditional welcome-back fanfare has been replaced with a mandatory 14 day quarantine. The measure is meant to protect from the spread of COVID-19.

This is certainly not the Fort Bragg soldiers left suddenly four months ago.

On New Years Eve, the division’s Immediate Response Force was activated amid rising tension with Iran. Within days, more than three thousand paratroopers were deployed to the Middle East, some having just hours to say goodbye to loved ones.

On Friday evening, Sgt. Ashley Boutte waited patiently for her husband, Sgt. Lawrence Boutte, an Apache helicopter mechanic. She didn’t expect he’d be home in time for their first wedding anniversary in a few weeks. “It’s nothing but a blessing,” she told The Associated Press.

But for some soldiers, reunions will have to wait. For the next two weeks, paratroopers will be quarantined to follow Department of Defense guidelines. Those who live with family members off base will be allowed to hunker down in homes and apartments, but others are immediately being taken to a containment area on Fort Bragg.

They’ll have Wi-Fi and workout equipment. And while the situation isn’t ideal, public affairs officer Maj. Rich Foote said he hasn’t heard many complaints.

“It’s understood. This is what they’re coming home to, they get it,” Foote said.

Face masks and social distancing aren’t new concepts for these paratroopers. They were months into their deployment when CDC requirements reached their units spread out across Kuwait and Iraq.

It will take three weeks to bring the remaining 2,500 members of the Immediate Response Force back to North Carolina. Ashlee Matlock’s husband wasn’t in the group that arrived Friday night, but she’s expecting him soon.

“I’m so proud of my husband and all of the paratroopers because this is a historic event and for them to react without hesitation and jump into action, that makes my heart so proud,” she said.

Matlock calls herself lucky. Her husband had three days to prepare for his deployment, while others had a matter of hours.

First Brigade’s deployment marked the first time in three decades the IRF was mobilized into a combat situation.

While deployed, the division supported U.S. Central Command missions in both Iraq and Kuwait.

Boutte and her husband get to quarantine at home. She’s grateful to have two weeks to relax with the man she met at a Fort Bragg Bible study, shrugging off the fact that there wasn’t a more formal welcoming event for the troops. “Just because there’s no ceremony doesn’t mean it’s not absolutely marvelous.”

He finishes the chorus — it’s the 1989 Guns N’ Roses hit “Patience.” And he tells the Green Berets he counsels as an Army chaplain: “Yeah. Patience. That’s the word we’re going to talk about today.”

For two years, Minietta, 46, has served the 3rd Special Forces Group, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, though many of the soldiers have spent more time bouncing from deployments to conflict zones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria than at home. As Green Berets — the better-known moniker for the elite soldiers of the Special Forces — these operators specialize in unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense and counterinsurgency.

Now, the coronavirus outbreak has upended the norm on base and beyond. Some training and deployments continue, but many have been sidelined. Only essential workers are reporting on post, ushered through gates patrolled by military police officers wearing masks.

A chaplain’s ministry — no matter the religion — has always been about in-person connections. How does that continue when the flock is forced apart? Minietta and others are figuring it out on the fly, with the help of technology, all while tensions are high for soldiers.

“Whether that’s anxiety, whether that’s fear, whether it’s the family dynamics that come up from being home — we have the opportunity to support,” he said. “This has given us the opportunity to be innovative and creative.”

Minietta’s patience-themed video message is the third he’s recorded since the pandemic began. He’s also preached about fear and hope in video clips uploaded to his group’s Facebook page.

The Green Berets he serves are known as quiet professionals. They’ve done a lot, seen a lot — but they don’t talk about it much. Gaining their trust takes time and effort, Minietta said. And while most chaplains don’t go through the Special Forces selection process, they train, deploy and are airborne qualified, jumping out of airplanes alongside the operators they serve. Minietta, after spending years as a missionary and youth pastor, was commissioned in 2007 and has deployed seven times.

When Capt. Scott Britton, a fellow Fort Bragg chaplain who serves the Green Berets of 3rd Group’s 3rd Battalion, joined the Army in 2012, he felt he was walking among giants. But through his training and building relationships, he now feels connected to his soldiers.

“This style of ministry allows the shepherd to smell like the sheep,” Britton, 42, said. “We get to experience a lot of the same things the soldiers do, and I think for a lot of chaplains that’s a comfortable place to be.”

This month, Britton preached his Easter sermon alone on his back porch, while 35 soldiers training in the field listened on the phone. It was certainly a first, he said, but “we do find ways.”

Both chaplains say they’re used to being out of their comfort zones. Working with soldiers whose lives are grounded in chaos and loss can be hard.

Since 2002, the 3rd Special Forces Group has lost 60 Green Berets in action. Sixteen times, Minietta has knocked on doors alongside casualty assistance officers who are giving families the worst kind of news.

“Every time I knock on a door, there are an unbelievable amount of nerves,” he said.

Minietta brings up those door knocks at the end of his video message. He tells the camera he couldn’t have done it without patience — patience to know the worst thing is never the last thing, whether it’s death, divorce and or a pandemic.

“May we remember that Axl Rose ultimately had it right,” he told his video audience. “All we need is a little patience.”

The parachute rigging unit is essential to airborne operations at Fort Bragg. On any given day, their shed is filled with paratroopers in red ball caps, busy packing parachutes and readying supplies for jumps.

While that work continues, soldiers across the room are laser focused on tiny pins and buzzing sewing machines. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, riggers are now making cloth face masks to fight the virus for personnel around the sprawling Army base in North Carolina.

Initially, company commander Capt. Anthony Williams set a goal for his soldiers to produce 600 masks a week. “With the soldiers and their adaptability and their resilience, we’re actually producing 600 masks a day,” Williams told The Associated Press.

North Carolina State University donated 4,000 meters of unwoven material that’s being used to construct new personal protective equipment.

Underscoring the need for the protective equipment, Fort Bragg on Friday announced that a civilian employee and a contractor who worked at the base were the installation’s first two COVID-19 related deaths.

The fabric makes its way through a multi-step process and is precisely handled, just as the parachutes riggers pack and troopers trust enough to strap on and jump out of an airplane.

Williams has watched his soldiers embrace the process, some even volunteering to sit behind sewing machines for multiple shifts.

“It shows you that you don’t necessarily have to be in combat to make an impact or overseas,” he said. “You can do that right here in the United States.”

Across base, the soldiers of the 188th Brigade Support Battalion are using 3D printers to build face shields.

This PPE is being distributed by the 18th Airborne Corps to units and personnel across Fort Bragg at risk of coming in contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus.

Many have a connection to the virus. Lt. Col. Stephen Manger thinks about his sister who is a physician in Maine. His face brightens when asked how he feels about helping people. “That’s every day in the Army,” Manger said. “Right now our medical community is the front line. And dang it, if it means producing masks for the medical community, we’re going to produce masks.”