The Washington Post is running a feature on Beyond the Front, one of our latest programs developed with the US Army, which is designed to train soldiers on Suicide Prevention.
Alarmed by a record rate of suicide in its ranks, the Army yesterday unveiled a unique prevention tool — an interactive video to be mandatory viewing Army-wide — 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.
Read the rest of the article here.
