This is a great thing Patty Murray did to prevent active duty suicides.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., announced Thursday that President Obama has signed her amendment to require the Pentagon to create a new suicide prevention program for active military members.

The new program would also expand eligibility for Department of Veterans Affairs mental health service to family members, improve training and education for health care providers and create more soldier-to-soldier counseling opportunities, according to Murray.

Great work, Senator. Still, as long as the war in Afghanistan is going on anything like this is going to be a small part of the solution. Because this is an inevitable consequence of a decade of war. This is going to happen in a war where the end is still over a year away. This is what happens when people are going to be away from their families for an extended period of time.

So by all means, let’s do everything we can to prevent military suicides. But let’s not pretend they’re going to stop while the country is at war.