Army Has New Video to Combat Suicides

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- His name is Spc. Kyle Norton, and his life is falling apart.

Norton is deployed in the Middle East. His wife-to-be has just ended their relationship via e-mail. He has money problems. A bad country-and-western song doesn't even begin to describe his life.

Now he's about to kill himself.

Norton isn't real, but Army leaders hope that he helps curtail a real-world spike in suicides that grabbed the attention of top military brass and influential lawmakers.

Norton is a character in "Beyond the Front," a combination feature film and computer game that will serve as a role-playing exercise for every Army soldier in the next 30 days. The Army has received 14,000 copies of the video for use during a month-long stand-down aimed at suicide prevention.

Suicides in the Army reached a 27-year high last year, and January provided more chilling news: If the number of suspected suicides is confirmed, self-inflicted deaths will have eclipsed combat deaths across all U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan last month.

On Wednesday, two high-ranking U.S. senators called on Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to convene a meeting on the subject.

A day later, the problem surfaced at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., which has seen four suicides in the cadet corps. It was the topic of an academy board meeting.

Locally, Fort Eustis has seen two suicides since 2003 -- one in 2004 and one in 2007, spokeswoman Monica Miller Rodgers said. Both occurred off base and didn't involve soldiers who were deployed.

Extended duty in Iraq and Afghanistan is seen as a big stress on the military -- especially the Army, which provides the bulk of the ground force over two wars. Two years ago, Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia argued for more downtime between deployments. His measure didn't pass, and he called the suicide rate alarming.

"People were saying I was trying to politicize the war or shut down the operations," he recently told the Daily Press. "Look, I grew up in the military. I know what it's like on all ... sides of this."

The simulated exercise isn't a cure-all for a fighting force stretched thin, but it will let soldiers practice making tough decisions, said Sharon Sloane, president and CEO of WILL Interactive, the Maryland-based company that produced the project in cooperation with the military.

"What this does is basically compress experience," Sloane said. "It lets them play it out before they live it out."

The exercise requires soldiers to make choices on behalf of Spc. Norton: Does he talk out his problems? Does he try to tough it out? Is there a middle ground?

The language is mildly profane, and some of the battle scenes are bloody.

Soldiers can also play a different character, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Martin. He's not suicidal, but his friend might be. Martin must decide whether to intervene or let his buddy work it out.

At the heart of "Beyond the Front" and the suicide-prevention effort is the unintended consequence of a military culture that breeds toughness, self-confidence and the ability to overcome and adapt.

Confessing a problem with depression or mental illness could be a sign of weakness. It could derail a career.

At least, that's the fear.

The simulation aims to erase that fear. And if you can't, the role-playing exercise doesn't end happily.

"Some of the choices, it will be quite obvious what the right choice is," Sloane said.

"The problem is it will be very difficult to make it."