Iraq War veteran Mark Combs knows of more than a dozen veterans who have killed themselves.
When he received a phone call in 2014 about another who had died by suicide, he decided to do something about it.
"He called the VA," Combs said. "They told him the soonest they could get him in was 4 weeks out. He tried to explain he was in dire straits. They just didn't listen. A few days after calling them he killed himself. That was just kind of the straw that broke the camel's back."
Combs, a Beckley native, was about to graduate with a degree in theater from West Virginia University. He decided to make a television show about veteran suicide.
"Still Taking Casualties" tells the personal stories of West Virginia veterans who have attempted suicide. It airs on West Virginia Public Broadcasting at 7 p.m. tonight and on the West Virginia Channel on Monday at 8 p.m.
Combs says that while many people know the oft-cited statistic that an estimated 22 veterans a day die by suicide, they don't know the personal stories behind those numbers. (The figure comes from the VA's 2012 Suicide Data report.) He said he wanted to humanize the problem by putting faces to the statistics.
"There's not enough conversation going on in the general public or in the media about the problem," he said. "It kind of gets glazed over. You might hear the number 22 a day then it's a five-second clip."
In 2015, 347 deaths were documented as suicides in West Virginia, according to Allison Adler, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Resources. Of those 69 were veterans, or about 20 percent. Veterans made up about 8 percent of the population in the state.
Web-only content and clips from the show will be available at www.wvpublic.org/stories-service.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.