HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- The numbers are as cold as the mountains of Afghanistan in winter. The trend is as relentless as the decade-long war since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

According to the U.S. Army, more soldiers are now dying by suicide than by enemy attack.

In July, the worst month in recent history, the Army said 38 active duty soldiers killed themselves.

It's the newest concern in America's war theater, camouflaged in the mysterious world of mental disease and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Suicide is the enemy within the lines," said Maj. Gen. Lynn Collyar, the commanding officer of the Army's Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. "It's a faceless enemy; it's basically inside the wire right now."

It's a new phenomenon in the war on terror. In 2011, there were 165 confirmed suicides and the 2012 numbers are on pace to exceed that. Through September, there have been 91 confirmed active-duty suicides and another 55 are under investigation as possible suicides.

The same goes for non-active duty personnel. Last year, there were 118 confirmed suicides. This year, there have been 101 incidents either confirmed as suicides or under investigation as possible suicides.

A study by the Army Public Health Command found that from 2004-2008, suicides rose 80 percent - exceeding the civilian suicide rate.

Young soldiers (18 to 24 years old) and of low rank accounted for about half of the suicides, the study found. More than two-thirds (69 percent) of suicides were committed by soldiers who have served in active combat.

But suicide victims aren't simply a demographic group. Collyar said at AMCOM, 30 soldiers, civilians and contractors as well as one family member have committed suicide over the past four years.

Outside the gates of sprawling Redstone Arsenal - the largest military base in the state - the war seems far away. Redstone is more often thought of by the average citizen as a churning economic engine providing more than 30,000 high-paying jobs that has allowed Huntsville to persevere, if not prosper, during the recession that has haunted much of the country.

Inside the gates, however, the Army is still the Army.

High-stress life in Army

"Most of the people in the Army are high (in stress) all the time because that's what we do," Collyar said.

As Collyar spoke, hundreds of people inside a Redstone auditorium shifted uncomfortably in their chairs while groaning in disbelief as he described recent Army suicides.

The program was part of what the Army termed a "Suicide Stand Down", a recognition of the suicide problem by the Army and part of a widespread effort to curtail the trend of soldiers and employees taking their own lives.

In 2007-08, 255 soldiers on active duty took their own lives, according to the Army study. That's an average of 20 suicides per 100,000 person years. This year, the number climbed to 29 suicides per 100,000 person years, according to The Army Times.

It's a complicated problem with no easy solution.

Dee Pitts was a recently-divorced Army wife with two children. Her daughter, Anntronett, talked about the close relationship the two shared and described her mother as her "best friend."

Together they were working through Dee's depression, Anntronett said, and despite the problems, theirs was still a happy relationship.

"I know she loved herself some Anntronett," her daughter said with a smile.

But on Aug. 29, 2010, Dee Pitts took her own life, "shattering the life of everybody that loved her," said Anntronett, a contract specialist at Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal. "Everybody knew her as the lady with the big beautiful smile, contented laugh and exercising and jogging all over town."

The happy life that Dee Pitts apparently led is a sort of cautionary tale. Even close friends and family may miss the signs that something is wrong.

Improved communication through personal interaction is part of the strategy the Army has implemented to fight back against suicide.

Such a strategy, of course, is not so simple in 2012 - not in a generation of text messaging, of Twitter, of Facebook. Not when soldiers now bunk in their own rooms, literally putting a wall between himself and a buddy.

The Army has outlined a four-pronged plan to ward off suicide: give institution norms and policies a closer look, reverse isolation, enhance resiliency and reduce the stigmas of seeking help.

"We've got to beat this thing," Collyar said.

Perhaps the most daunting change facing the Army is overcoming the stigma of soldiers or employees seeking help.

Worried that their careers may suffer if they do seek help, often soldiers and employees simply keep their problems to themselves, according to Lt. Col. Reagon Carr, a licensed clinical social worker and counselor with the Army Medical Department based at Fox Army Hospital at Redstone Arsenal.

He said that studies indicated that 17.7 percent definitely think their career will be hampered by asking for help while 58.1 percent said it may or may not be an issue. Only 24.2 percent said they believed it definitely would not affect their career.

An Army campaign encourages a buddy to escort someone who needs help as a mechanism to shatter that negative perception.

The campaign is known as ACE - Ask, Care, Escort. According to the Army, a soldier or civilian employee should ask a battle buddy or co-worker if they are suicidal, care for that person and escort them to the source of professional help

ACE has been a widely-acclaimed program. But it's going to take more than a poster on a wall to change negative perceptions that can still linger.

Shattering stigmas

Carr told of visiting the parents in Mobile of a soldier who committed suicide and being asked why he didn't know about their son's problems. The only answer he could offer, Carr said, was that he simply didn't know.

"They don't come and talk to us," Carr said. "People know what's on a certain floor."

He made reference to the fourth floor of Fox Army Hospital. And Carr said the Army has gotten wise to that stereotype, posting rooms on different floors of the building to deal with soldiers and employees seeking help as part of suicide prevention.

"They know we're in a certain building and nobody wants to go to that certain floor or that certain building because they don't want people talking," Carr said. "That's that stigma."

Richard Lewis has another approach. At the "Suicide Stand Down," he told the audience he was twice divorced and had sought help himself.

"The way you kill a stigma is you throw it out there," said Lewis, a licensed counselor and an employee assistance professional at Redstone Arsenal.

In short, if a soldier or an employee needs help, Lewis is there to provide it.

"In 30 years, I never met a person who wanted to die," Lewis said. "I met people who just wanted to stop hurting. They just wanted the pain to stop. Everything that they've been able to do to try to stop the pain is not working.

"What we are looking at now is how to address the situation that we can help people to identify what's happening in their lives and to intervene not on the suicide but the pain - before we ever get to the suicide."

The common thread to suicide, research has told the Army, is helplessness and hopelessness. And it's not something a slap on the back or an encouraging word can cure.

If a soldier or employee feels helpless or hopeless - no matter how untrue it may be - then it's real, Lewis said.

Still, the overriding cause of suicide remains elusive. Substance abuse has been found to be a factor in some cases while married soldiers and employees are less likely to take their own lives.

But suicide is an enemy the Army is tracking. There is no shortage of websites providing pathways to help. The Army now has behavioral health teams embedded in brigade combat teams. Even at peaceful Redstone Arsenal, counselors and chaplains are available around the clock.

The Army is in the midst of a five-year Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS) that is analyzing, among other issues, causative factors in suicide. It's the largest study of mental health risk and resilience ever conducted among military personnel, according to the Army, and is scheduled for completion in 2014.

Actors Gary Sinise and Drew Carey have taped videos for the Army aimed at soldiers and employees that encourage getting help.

Receiving that professional help, however, isn't an insular tactic. A U.S. Department of Defense study found that 45 percent of service members who committed suicide were seen by military health care professionals in the month before their deaths.

Just as battles can be waged in new evolutions such as cyber warfare, experts face unique challenges in reversing the rising trend of suicides.

"This is something we can beat but it will take all of us," Collyar said. "Behind our support of the warfighter (on the battlefield) . . . this is our second priority. This is taking just as many warfighters as that is.

"There were actually more killed by suicide than there was killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined."

Also in the Cost of War series by al.com and its affiliated newspapers:



Alabama man committed "suicide by police officer."



What the

means to Alabama.

Jefferson County man first

into Alabama Military Hall of Fame.

To get help



National suicide-prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255

Army suicide prevention: www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/suicide

Department of Veterans Affairs suicide-prevention website



For families who have lost a loved one in uniform to suicide



Follow me on Twitter @paul_gattis or email me at pgattis@al.com