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Suicide Rate Worries Army

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The Washington Post

Published: October 9, 2008

WASHINGTON - Alarmed by a record rate of suicide in its ranks, the Army has unveiled a unique prevention tool - an interactive video to be mandatory viewing Armywide - in which soldiers will play the role of an anguished infantryman and make virtual choices that lead the character to get help or, in the worst case, shoot himself in the head.

"This is you: Specialist Kyle Norton," a male narrator begins, putting soldiers in the boots of a 19-year-old Midwesterner after a bomb-clearing mission in Iraq.

The video, titled "Beyond the Front," leads the viewer through a detailed drama in which Norton is hit by relationship troubles, financial problems and scrapes with the law - what Army research shows are major events that precipitate suicide. Norton is blindsided by an e-mail from his fiancee, who has become pregnant by another man. He is devastated further when one of his best friends is killed in an ambush.

Questions pop onto the screen at key moments, prompting the viewer to decide whether to get help - by opening up with buddies, Norton's sergeant or a chaplain. Depending on the choices, Norton edges toward recovery or sinks deeper into suicidal thoughts. The goal is to immerse the viewer into Norton's life in a way that makes preventive lessons stick, say Army officials and the video's creators.

The video is one of several initiatives launched by the Army to try to stem the suicide rate among active-duty soldiers. That rate increased from 12.4 per 100,000 in 2003, when the Iraq war started, to 18.1 per 100,000 last year.

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