T-Shirt Promoted Awareness Of Veteran Suicides

When Marine Corps veteran Catherine Banks went to board her flight at San Francisco International Airport (KSFO), she was wearing a T-shirt that read, “Do Not Give In To The War Within. End Veteran Suicide.”

Banks was stopped by a male flight attendant who said her T-shirt was “threatening” and Banks told him she spent 22 years as a Marine and she was going to visit her sister, also a Marine.

Banks said the flight attendant said, 'I don't care about your service, and I don't care about her service. The only way you're going to get back on the plane is if you take it off right now.”

Banks was eventually able to board but only after putting on a sweatshirt and being instructed to sit in the rear of the aircraft instead of the seat she paid for.

After being told about the incident, U.S. Senators Katie Britt (R-AL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) penned a letter to Delta CEO Ed Bastian calling the incident “shameful” and demanding that he “reconsider the training” of his employees. They said they are “disturbed and perplexed by the disgraceful manner in which the passenger was treated.”

It is well-established and known among veterans and their families, friends, and government officials, particularly in the VA system, that 30,000 veterans have committed suicide since 9/11 and on average, 22 veterans per day die by their own hand.

We concur with the letter that also read, in part, "In this circumstance, the passenger was reportedly wearing a t-shirt with the words, "Do Not Give In To The War Within. End Veteran Suicide," emblazoned on the front. It defies both sound logic and good faith intentions that these 11 words would "create an unreasonable risk of offense or annoyance" to other passengers.

Raising awareness and ending the stigma are integral to improving mental health outcomes and ending our country’s epidemic of suicides. Your employee’s actions ran counter to those goals. We applaud the willingness of anyone working to bring attention to this issue — especially veterans such as your passenger in this case.”

We couldn’t agree more.

FMI:  www.delta.com/