In a holiday letter to the force, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll encouraged soldiers to “just pick up” when someone calls to check on them because “we all break eventually, and we need each other.”

Driscoll’s deeply personal Nov. 19 letter recalled a time in Ranger School when he fell during the school’s grueling winter Mountain Phase. “I slipped and fell, couldn’t get up, and the cold crushed me,” he wrote.

His Ranger buddies picked him up and helped to get him going again, Driscoll wrote, calling the moment “an inflection point for me.”

“I realized no one can go through life alone, we all break eventually, and we need each other,” Driscoll wrote. “At some point, all of us need a battle buddy to share the load. In that moment, you need someone to pick you up with grace and compassion.”

“Last year, we lost 260 soldiers to suicide,” Driscoll wrote. Soldiers aren’t getting the help they need, and signing letters of condolence “knowing we could have helped” is “heartbreaking,” he wrote. “I wish we never had to write another one,” Driscoll wrote.

Effective immediately through Jan. 15, Driscoll ordered officers and NCOs to “deliberately check in on every Soldier daily to see if they need help” to try to get ahead of the loneliness and isolation some soldiers might feel during the holidays.

“Just pick up your phone or car keys—call, text or visit your buddy—and pick them up too,” he wrote. “Just pick up so we can provide help.”

The letter provides two QR codes—one that links to the 988 Lifeline and another that links to the Army Suicide Prevention Program. Read the letter and see the QR codes here.

“For those who need help: when your phone rings during daily check-up, just pick up, and ask for help,” Driscoll wrote. “Seeking help is not weakness—it takes courage, faith and trust that your family, friends and community will accept you and help you. We want to pick you up, share your load and get you moving forward again.”

As the son of a military family and the father of children whom he hopes also will serve, the Army is “literally my family,” Driscoll wrote, adding that he still leans on his platoon sergeant and driver from his 2009 deployment to Iraq.

“When I make decisions, I do it fully knowing that my friends and our sons and daughters will bear the consequences,” Driscoll wrote. “This is personal for me, I know it is for you too, so let’s change it together.”