FORT SHAFTER — Spc. Kyle Norton's life was a mess.

On the 19-year-old soldier's first deployment to Iraq, his fiance sent him a "Dear John" letter. To make matters worse, she told him she was pregnant with another man's child.

Ten thousand miles away, Norton felt helpless and hopeless. A friend and fellow soldier helping him through the hard times was killed in combat.

The downward spiral worsened, the depression deepened, and Norton killed himself.

Norton is not a real soldier, but that is the worst-case scenario of a suicide prevention interactive video called "Beyond the Front" that all soldiers are required by the Army to watch.

With Army suicides at an all-time high, the service last month introduced a three-phased prevention approach using three videos, an emphasis on "ACE" (Ask your buddy if he or she is thinking about suicide, Care for your buddy, and Escort a buddy who needs help), and annual refresher courses.

The concern is so great the Army created a suicide prevention task force and ordered a recently concluded month-long "stand-down" to address suicides among soldiers.

In 2008, 143 active duty soldiers killed themselves.

In January, 12 more soldiers killed themselves, with another 12 cases under review. For February, 18 deaths are under investigation. In February 2008, there were 11 Army suicides.

"This is not business as usual," Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said at a blogger's roundtable this month. "We must move quickly to prevent further suicides."

Army officials said the rates aren't much different for the Marines, who along with the Army have shouldered the lion's share of ground combat in two wars.

LOCAL DATA

For the first time, the Army in Hawai'i released suicide statistics for soldier deaths here. There were no suicides in 2004, one in 2005, three in 2006, four in 2007 and one in 2008, officials said.

The figures do not take into account suicides by Hawai'i-based soldiers in war zones such as Iraq or Afghanistan. Officials said those numbers were unavailable because of different reporting chains overseas.

One death in Iraq from the recently ended 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team deployment is under investigation as a possible suicide.

"There's always concern. We're always watching, we're always learning, and that's why we try to train everyone — so we can be aware," said Sgt. 1st Class Russell Matteo, a chaplain assistant who was a facilitator at the recent video presentation at Fort Shafter.

Matteo said he doesn't know how many suicide counseling sessions there have been, because meetings with a chaplain or counselor are confidential.

All Hawai'i soldiers watch two videos that are part of "Beyond the Front," officials said. That will be followed by "Shoulder to Shoulder," another video reinforcing suicide prevention themes.

"Beyond the Front" is a series of vignettes that follow the lives of fictitious soldiers Norton and Ben Hernandez, a noncommissioned officer who had returned from his fourth deployment in five years.

The videos are stopped at regular intervals, and soldiers watching discuss and decide what will happen next from a list of options. The video opens with a commander back at home station who acts as narrator, interspersed with scenes from a firefight.

"It's never easy losing men in my command," the narrator states. Later, he says "there are two soldiers who should be here right now, and they aren't."

But the video tells viewing soldiers they get to go back in time, "walk in their shoes, experience their lives," and change the outcome. Six soldiers in a conference room at Fort Shafter last week followed Norton's deployment.

The young soldier with short-cropped reddish blond hair gets a "Dear John" letter from his fiance, Anne, who later tells him over the phone she is pregnant with another man's child.

Norton is devastated by the breakup and inability to do anything about it while on a deployment, has trouble sleeping, and tells another soldier named Blair, "When I finally do get to sleep, I just don't really care if I wake up or not."

He gets help from Blair, but Blair is killed in a firefight, and that puts Norton into a deeper funk.

Over the course of the approximately 45-minute video session, the Fort Shafter soldiers decided Norton should seek help from a chaplain and a captain with the Combat Stress Prevention Team.

Matteo repeatedly asks the group, "What do you do?" placing the soldiers in Norton's role.

GETTING HELP

Norton is placed under watch, has to temporarily turn in his weapon and is razzed by fellow soldiers about seeing the chaplain, but with continued counseling regains stability.

"A lot of times, just talking to somebody can get you through that moment of stress you are having," Matteo tells the group at one point. One goal of the video is to try to destigmatize the need for help.

Spc. Thomas Shields, 27, said after the video that he could relate to some of the stress experienced by the fictitious soldier Norton.

The Tucson, Ariz., man was in Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, and Afghanistan again in 2007.

"I had a lot of stuff going through my head with my family back home, a lot of nightmares and flashbacks," Shields said.

On top of that, his wife decided to leave him, he said.

He saw a chaplain and eventually a psychologist. Shields said he's in counseling twice a week and on medication to help with post traumatic stress disorder.

"Emotion-wise, I'm a lot better," he said.

Shields estimated that 40 to 60 percent of deployed soldiers go through some form of depression. That can be brought on by the loss of a friend, not being able to be around a spouse or kids, or any number of other situations, he said.

'VERY COMPLICATED'

The Army said suicidal behavior is not just deployment related.

Chiarelli, the Army's vice chief of staff, said the problem is "very, very complicated."

Army suicides in 2008 were split among 30 percent who were deployed, 35 percent with no deployment history, and 35 percent post-deployment.

About half the soldiers who committed suicide last year sought treatment from mental health care providers.

At least 60 percent had relationship problems, and only 5.4 percent had been diagnosed with PTSD.

Matteo, the chaplain assistant, said "Beyond the Front" is part of the best suicide prevention tools he's seen in his career. It replaced a series of 70-some slides based on Beetle Bailey, a comic strip that originated in 1950, he said.

The Army also conducts screenings in theater and post deployment, and has a host of other mental health programs.

Through the videos and the "ACE" concept, the Army hopes it can make a difference for soldiers thinking about suicide, and those closest to them.

"We are trying to train people to recognize the signs," Matteo said.