An article in last Sunday’s New York Times was a powerful reminder of the urgency of Sen. Joe Donnelly’s campaign to help military personnel cope with mental health problems and prevent suicides.

Reporter Dave Phillips’ account was a snapshot of the tragedy and frustration faced by one combat unit, not a general report on the effects and aftereffects of war. But it’s hard to read it without wondering why those who are charged with their welfare knew so little about the mental health problems the men in this unit have faced, and why they seemed to offer so little help.

When a veteran suggested a few months ago that Phillips write about suicides among the Marine battalion the veteran had been part of, Phillips reacted with cynicism.

Suicide in the military is a difficult subject. Even quantifying it can be a challenge. Though service-member suicides have exceeded battlefield deaths in recent years, the causes elude analysis. Suicide rates among service members who never faced combat, for instance, are sometimes higher than those for combat veterans.

But as he looked into it, Phillips became convinced that now, seven years after a particularly harsh deployment in Afghanistan, suicide in the Second Battalion, Second Marine Regiment was "spreading through the old unit like a virus."

"Of about 1,200 Marines who deployed with the 2/7 in 2008, at least 13 have killed themselves, two while on active duty, the rest after they left the military. The resulting suicide rate for the group is nearly four times the rate for young male veterans as a whole and14 times that for all Americans."

In 2008, the battalion was stationed in Helmand Province where, in eight months of fierce fighting, "the unit killed hundreds of enemy fighters and suffered more casualties than any other Marine battalion that year."

The U.S. Defense and Veterans Affairs departments are said to have focused far more attention and resources on suicide in recent years, yet no one in the government could tell Phillips how the continuing suffering of the Second Battalion, Second Marine Regiment compared to other units involved in heavy combat.

"For years," Phillips wrote, "leaders at the top level of government have acknowledged the high suicide rate among veterans and spent heavily to try to reduce it. But the suicides have continued, and basic questions about who is most at risk and how best to help them are still unanswered."

Donnelly has been working with other lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to provide the military with some new tools and approaches to address the problem.

Last year, his Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Prevention Act, requiring annual mental health assessments for all active, reserve and National Guard service members, became law after it was bundled into the national defense bill.

This year, Donnelly has gotten a three-bill Servicemember and Veteran Mental Health Care Package into the defense bill. The package would set standards and require regular training in suicide prevention for all military mental health providers. It would provide incentives for community providers to become proficient at helping service members and their families, offer special designations for providers who have the competence to deal with the problems of military culture and establish a registry that would help service members and families find providers who have the training and qualifications to help.

The House and Senate have both passed versions of the national defense bill, and all that remains is for a conference committee to work out the differences and finalize a National Defense Authorization Act. Both the House and Senate versions include the Donnelly Care Package. So unless the legislative chaos some members of Congress have threatened gets in the way, the second phase of Donnelly’s plan will be signed into law before the end of the year.

This is the kind of urgent, nonpartisan need that Congress should be attending to. It is already too late for some of those who served in the Second Battalion, Second Marine Regiment.