Mental Health and Substance Abuse are rampant in our military in this day and age due to neglect and brushing off of providers and commands. This petition is being created in hopes to gain enough signatures to bring to our SASC and get them to listen and bring forth legislation for reform. We need service members to be able to seek mental health help the same way that dependents can, on OR off post without a referral. Dependents through TriCare Prime are allowed to seek therapy, psychiatry, and psychology without a referral; but their SM cannot. In most scenarios the Behavioral Health the SM seeks is controlled and operated by their own Battalion, making it far too easy to target soldiers and separate them based on saving face or sheer spite, rather than using the tool for what it was created for: to treat and rehabilitate. It’s imperative that our elected officials address this issue and create reform swiftly to better utilize spending and tools within the military to accommodate the SM’s who need treatment. Mental healthcare should not be governed by Commanders who have no medical degree and aren’t qualified to treat a diagnosis. Mental Healthcare should be exceedingly accessible to all SM’s to create a healthier military and promote readiness. Substance Abuse should be treated appropriately in the same fashion as would be in the civilian world, with inpatient facilities accessible on every major base. Additionally, no SM should be receiving mental healthcare from command controlled clinics while not deployed. Command controlled facilities degrade the reliability and trustworthiness of the care received, and create a lack of accountability for command when care is neglected. Mental health for active duty should be an absolute top priority to combat the epidemic and influx of mental illness in the veteran community. They give their all for us; it’s only fitting to give our all for them as well.