WASHINGTON -- When 25-year-old Army specialist Chancellor Keesling killed himself in Baghdad this summer, his family was flown to Delaware's Dover Air Force Base to receive his casket. He then received a full military burial, complete with a 21-gun salute.

But Spec. Keesling's grieving family has not received a condolence letter from President Barack Obama. The White House said a longstanding policy prevents him from sending such a letter to families of troops who have committed suicide.

The Keesling family is mounting a lobbying effort to get that policy overturned. With the military being hit by a record number of suicides, the Keeslings -- backed by a bipartisan array of lawmakers from their home state of Indiana -- argue that the rule is archaic.

"If the president wants to destigmatize mental health, and destigmatize military suicide, why does he stigmatize families like ours by pretending that our son didn't die?" said Spec. Keesling's father, Gregg Keesling. "If Chance had been struck by lightning in Baghdad or hit by a car, we would have gotten a letter. We shouldn't be treated differently because he died by suicide."

The family's efforts are running up against a longstanding institutional belief within the military that suicide is a sign of weakness and that troops who take their own lives shouldn't receive the same military honors accorded to troops who die in combat or from accidents in the war zones.