JO President's Report

Mental and Physical Health

By LT Zoe "Latrina" Macfarlane, USN

I want to start off by giving a huge thank you to all who came and made the 2024 Symposium such a success - it truly wouldn’t have been possible without the support from our donors, vendors, volunteers, and military members who made the trip to Harrah's!

Diving into the issue of mental and physical health, while the military has always upheld a basic level of physical fitness, until recently mental health was never really a topic of discussion. During my time in the Navy, I have seen progress made with respect to addressing the mental health issues our service members face. And yet, we still have a way to go. Fleet and Family Support Centers and Chaplains are the two main resources for Sailors to discuss mental health issues they may be facing. Both resources typically serve multiple commands and don’t have the staff required to support the volume of Sailors seeking assistance.

While I don’t know what the right answer is to solve this manning problem, which is nothing new to the Navy, I do believe we are on the right path in continuing to provide better mental health care to our service members. At my previous command, I had a Commanding Officer who spoke openly with the JOs about how he used Navy resources for therapy. I never thought I would have a boss so candidly speak about how both the job we have and life in general are stressful. Using the tools we have available to us can help people through tough times.

Providing Sailors with resources and speaking openly about mental health has helped to challenge the old notion that if you’re experiencing a mental health crisis, you must be unable to handle stress or solve your own problems. This, as we know, couldn’t be further from the truth, and while discussion has moved the needle in the right direction, I believe there still needs to be more action in improving the Navy’s mental health support system.