I 

113TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. R. 4504 

To improve military readiness by establishing programs to consistently track, 

retain, and analyze information regarding suicides involving members 

of the reserve components of the Armed Forces and suicides involving 

dependents of members of the regular and reserve components. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

APRIL 28, 2014 

Ms. TSONGAS (for herself, Mr. PETERS of California, and Mr. CARSON of Indiana) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee 

on Armed Services 

A BILL 

To improve military readiness by establishing programs to 

consistently track, retain, and analyze information regarding suicides involving members of the reserve components of the Armed Forces and suicides involving dependents of members of the regular and reserve components. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘DoD Suicide Tracking 

5 Act of 2014’’. 


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1 SEC. 2. IMPROVED CONSISTENCY IN RESERVE COMPONENT 

2 SUICIDE PREVENTION AND RESILIENCE PRO3 GRAM. 

4 (a) POLICY FOR STANDARD SUICIDE DATA COLLEC5 TION, REPORTING AND ASSESSMENT.—To improve con6 sistency in and oversight of the suicide prevention and re7 silience program for the National Guard and Reserves es8 tablished pursuant to section 10219 of title 10, United 

9 States Code, the Secretary of Defense shall prescribe a 

10 policy for the development of a standard method for col11 lecting, reporting, and assessing suicide data and suicide12 attempt data involving members of the National Guard 

13 and Reserves. 

14 (b) CONSULTATION.—The Secretary of Defense shall 

15 develop the policy required by subsection (a) in consulta16 tion with the Secretaries of the military departments, the 

17 Chief of the National Guard Bureau, and the adjutants 

18 general of the States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 

19 the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. 

20 (c) SUBMISSION OF POLICY AND CONGRESSIONAL

21 BRIEFING.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the 

22 enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit the pol23 icy developed under subsection (a) to the Committees on 

24 Armed Services of the Senate and the House of Represent25 atives. At the request of the committees, the Secretary 

26 also shall brief such committees on the policy and the imVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:01 Apr 29, 2014 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4504.IH H4504

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1 plementation status of the standardized suicide data col2 lection, reporting and assessment method. 

3 (d) IMPLEMENTATION.—The Secretaries of the mili4 tary departments, with respect to the Reserves, and the 

5 Chief of the National Guard Bureau and the adjutants 

6 general, with respect to the National Guard, shall imple7 ment the policy developed under subsection (a) within 180 

8 days after the date of the submission of the policy under 

9 subsection (c). 

10 SEC. 3. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SUICIDE PREVENTION 

11 PROGRAM FOR MILITARY DEPENDENTS. 

12 (a) PROGRAM REQUIRED.—As soon as possible after 

13 the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of 

14 Defense shall direct the Secretary of each military depart15 ment to develop and implement a program to track, retain, 

16 and analyze information regarding suicides involving de17 pendents of members of the regular and reserve compo18 nents of the Armed Forces under the jurisdiction of that 

19 Secretary. 

20 (b) DEPENDENT DEFINED.—In this section, the 

21 term ‘‘dependent’’ means a person described in section 

22 1072(2) of title 10, United States Code, except that, in 

23 the case of a parent or parent-in-law of a member of the 


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1 Armed Forces, the income-support requirement of sub2 paragraph (E) of such section does not apply. 

Æ 


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