A Dayton Daily News examination of news reports and information from veterans' advocate groups helped the newspaper compile a list of 21 servicemen who committed suicide after returning home from serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

The actual number of suicide victims could be higher because the military does not officially collect data on suicides among returning soldiers, the Daily News said in a story Sunday.

However, some question whether the suicides could have been prevented.

"The families were never counseled as to what they should be doing to support them," said Karen Payne, whose 23-year-old son, Army Spc. David Payne of Norman, Okla., fatally shot himself after his second tour of duty in Iraq.

Several studies sponsored by Congress and the Army say the Pentagon failed to prepare for the psychological toll on servicemen returning from combat.

"It's clear that the Department of Defense was not prepared to meet the mental health needs of soldiers," said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, an advocacy group for veterans.

At least 24 soldiers killed themselves during Operation Iraqi Freedom from January 2003 to October 2003 - a rate of 21.2 per 100,000, or nearly double the 2002 rate for all Army personnel.

The suicide rate for soldiers in Iraq was roughly double the 10.7 national rate for all Americans.

Army spokeswoman Martha Rudd said the Army responded "quickly and thoroughly" to the surge in suicides last summer, sending a team of consultants to Iraq and Kuwait in July to study the problem and then adopting most of the team's recommendations.

Those included appointing a theater of operations mental health consultant, providing behavioral services to soldiers closer to their fighting units and improving the mental health care for those being evacuated out of the war zone, Rudd said.

A new Army organization, the Deployment Cycle Support System, now coordinates mental health and wellness programs for soldiers and their families "from pre-deployment, to deployment, to post-deployment and then re-deployment," Rudd said.

Since the changes, the rate of soldier suicides in Iraq and Kuwait has dropped to two per month this year, Rudd said.

Robinson said the programs still aren't enough. More than 5,000 veterans of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with a mental health problem, according to an internal document prepared by the Veterans Administration.

Mary Tendall, a California psychotherapist who specializes in treating post-traumatic stress disorder for the VA, said soldiers who have spent prolonged periods in combat develop a "lock and load" mentality for years after their return.

"Their whole existence is coming from that primitive, reptilian-like place of survival within the brain - it's flight, fight or freeze," Tendall said.