At bases and on battleships around the world, they want service members in crisis to say their son’s name:

       “Brandon.”

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       “I’ve got a Brandon Act issue.”

       “I need to Brandon Act.”

       After three years of gut-wrenching work on behalf of their dead son, Teri and Patrick Caserta have prevailed: The Brandon Act passed its final hurdle in the U.S. Senate this week and will soon be signed into law.

       Their journey began after their only child, Brandon Caserta — distraught after his pleas for help from higher-ups went unanswered — ripped off his helmet and ran into the massive rotors of a Seahawk helicopter in Norfolk on a humid and cloudy day in June 2018. He’d been relentlessly bullied and hazed by a commander known for his cruelty.

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       Suicide, long known as the tragedy of haunted veterans, is increasing in active duty ranks. The 377 service members who killed themselves last year made a 40 percent increase in just five years, according to military data.

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       “I’m deeply concerned about the suicide rates, not only here but across the force,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a news conference at Alaska’s Eielson Air Force Base earlier this year, before the startling suicide toll in Alaska reached its current 15. “One loss by suicide is too many. While we’re working hard on this problem, we have a lot more to do.”

       Austin often speaks of tackling the stigma of counseling and asking for help. “Mental health is health,” he says.

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       The Casertas believe the Brandon Act can help with this.

       Now, whenever a member of the military needs mental health attention, they can use the safe words, “Brandon Act” to self-report anonymously and outside the chain of command, which is crucial for anyone in Brandon’s situation. Brandon left behind six suicide notes explaining what pushed him over the edge and asking his parents to try to change it, “so not as many people in the future will suffer the same fate I have.”

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       His parents — Arizonans unfamiliar with the working of Washington, but heartbroken and angry about their son’s death — listened.

       “We bought a car and drove across the country to D.C.,” Patrick said. The year of Brandon’s death, they “went from appointment to appointment, there in our casual clothing. Everyone was looking at us.”

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       When they got to Rep. Seth Moulton’s (D-Mass.) office, they met a staffer who was also impacted by a suicide. They talked for a long time and Moulton, a veteran, said he would write the bill. It passed the House last year, but died in the Senate. This year, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) got behind the bill and after sailing through the House, it passed the Senate this week.

       “America’s service members shouldn’t have to settle for a broken system that’s incapable of providing them with the mental health support they need,” Moulton said in a statement about the bill’s passing.

       He asked the Navy for help. They didn't listen.

       On its face, it’s a mental health bill to help service members get the support they need. But the Casertas also believe it’s going to be a backdoor way to zap the toxic leaders responsible for a culture where mental health help is not only mocked, but often blocked.

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       It was no secret that Brandon’s tormentor was cruel.

       “He would scream at people, make people cry, throw things across the work center, make derogatory comments,” said Lauren Fletcher, who worked under that same commander when he was at central California’s Naval Air Station Lemoore in 2016.

       “I never experienced leadership like his before. He was essentially abusive,” said Fletcher, who has since retired from the Navy. “He knew who to pick on and he didn’t hold back. His abuse of power was nauseating. Many of the leadership and fellow Petty officers knew about his behavior and not much if anything was done about it.”

       So they moved him.

       “It’s a bit like the Catholic Church and the sex abuse scandal,” Dave Matsuda, an anthropologist who was hired by the Pentagon to study suicides among active duty members, told The Military Times’ Patricia Kime. “Just shuffle the toxic leaders off to another place.”

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       The commander, who is still in Norfolk, and didn’t answer calls or return any requests for interviews, has not been charged, so we are not naming him.

       The investigation into Brandon’s chain of command, obtained by the Caserta family, shows the toxic culture Matsuda found in his research.

       A year after he was moved from California to Norfolk, Brandon’s commander was “counseled in writing following multiple complaints about the unprofessional manner in which he addressed his subordinates” and was “directed to formally apologize to his Sailors for his lapse in professionalism,” according to the investigation.

       He was removed from the command for two weeks, then reinstated. Right after that, he was verbally counseled for “one situation involving the use of vulgarity and another allegedly involving sexism,” then allowed to remain in charge, according to the investigation.

       An Air Force sergeant killed himself at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The notes he left behind are heartbreaking.

       “This was totally preventable,” Patrick Caserta said, of the commander’s ability to duck consequences for all the complaints against him.

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       Brandon joined the Navy right out of high school and dove into the SEAL pipeline. Before leaving Arizona, he met with a psychologist at the local VA. His dad, a 22-year veteran who worked as a recruiter and counselor in the Navy, wanted his son to talk out his life’s plan with someone other than him.

       “To be honest, we were hoping for college for him,” Patrick said. But the doctor cleared Brandon, telling dad he was focused and understood what a life in the Navy would mean, he really wanted it.

       Then a broken leg knocked him out of SEAL school and he had a breakup with his girlfriend.

       That was tough, and he met with the psychologist in Arizona again, his dad said. The doctor said Brandon’s head was in a good place, he was ready to move to Norfolk and refocus his training to become a plane captain.

       His mood before leaving for the uphill climb in Norfolk and his quick deterioration after he tried to serve under an abusive commander was obvious, his parents said.

       In his studies of military suicides, Matsuda found that most active duty members who killed themselves were struggling with personal issues. And in too many cases, these are what the military investigators pointed to as the cause of their deaths.

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       But in his investigation, Matsuda found a pattern of abuse that pushed a vulnerable person over the edge.

       “Add to this mix a toxic leader who relentlessly humiliates and ostracizes a soldier who has just returned from patrol and the pressure can be, I contend, fatally unrelenting,” Matsuda wrote in a 2014 lament that his findings had little impact on the military.

       The Casertas believe that in a good command, the Brandon Act will allow someone in need to easily ask for help and it will come, as the protocols and rules say it should.

       “It’s the bad commands that will be forced to do something,” Patrick Caserta said. “And that’s where it’s going to shine.”